Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi and US president Donald Trump at the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday. Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesUnited States president Donald Trump drew a parallel on Thursday between US ‌strikes on Iran and Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, as he defended the war he launched against ​Tehran while meeting Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi in Washington. Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” Trump replied when a journalist asked ​why he had not told allies about his war plans. The Japanese attack ⁠on the US naval base ​in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7th, ​1941, killed 2,390 Americans. The US declared war on Japan the next day, with ‌president Franklin D Roosevelt calling it “a ​date which will live in infamy”.

Source: The Irish Times March 20, 2026 09:06 UTC