When Donald Trump’s fortunes took a downturn in the 90s and he needed to raise cash fast, he sailed his 282ft (85m) superyacht, the Trump Princess, to Asia hoping he could attract Japan’s wealthy.
It wasn’t the first time the businessman had sought out Japanese buyers or lenders for his projects.
In the cut-throat world of New York real estate, Trump had a front-row seat from his Fifth Avenue skyscraper of Tokyo’s buying spree in the 80s of iconic US brands and properties, including Rockefeller Center.
It was then that his worldview on trade and America’s relations with its allies was formed, and his fixation on tariffs, a tax on imports, began.
“He had a tremendous resentment for Japan,” says Barbara Res, a former executive vice-president at the Trump Organization.
He watched with jealousy as Japanese businessmen were viewed as geniuses, she says. He felt America wasn’t getting enough in return for assisting its ally Japan with military defence.
Trump often complained that he had difficulties doing deals with large groups of Japanese businessmen.
“I’m tired of watching other countries ripping off the United States.”
That Trump quote could’ve been pulled from 2016, but it’s actually from the late 80s when he made an appearance on CNN’s Larry King Live, around the time he first floated his name as a potential presidential candidate.
Fresh from sharing his business philosophy in his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, Trump went on a tirade against America’s trade policies in national interviews.
In an animated interview with Oprah Winfrey before a live studio audience on The Oprah Show, he said he would handle foreign policy differently by making the country’s allies “pay their fair share”.
He added that there wasn’t free trade when Japan was “dumping” products into America’s market but making it “impossible to do business” there.
Jennifer Miller, an associate professor of history at Dartmouth College, said others shared his concerns about the economy at the time.
Japan provided competition for US manufacturing, particularly in consumer electronics and cars. As US factories were shuttering and new Japanese brands entered the market, pundits were talking about Japan surpassing the US as the world’s leading economy.
“Trump is sort of symbolic of a lot of people who were kind of questioning American leadership in the American-led international order, and whether it actually served the United States,” Prof Miller says.
Before his Oprah appearance, Trump had spent almost $100,000 to release an “open letter” in full-page ads in three major US newspapers.
The headline read: “There’s nothing wrong with America’s Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can’t cure.”
In it, he said Japan and other nations had been taking advantage of the US for decades. He claimed “the Japanese, unimpeded by the huge costs of defending themselves (as long as the United States will do it for free), have built a strong and vibrant economy with unprecedented surpluses”.
Trump believed the obvious solution was to “tax” these wealthy nations.
“The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help,” he wrote.