Do you even think he's sitting in on these negotiations? He can't remember Ishiba's name and just called him 'Mr Japan' when occasionally asked questions about him. My impression (and I've been watching these specific trade negotiations pretty closely) was that Scott Bessent was doing all the legwork and the Japanese seemed perfectly happy to talk to him instead of Trump. Whatever one might think of the policy arguments, Bessent seems coherent and professional whereas Trump comes off as shallow and erratic. I find it hard to imagine having hours-long focused and strategic conversation with him on a dry topic like trade policy.

It's an musing irony that Japan is a demographically much older society than the US and LDP in particular looks like a gerontocratic party, but between factionalism and parliamentary instability they actually cycle through leaders pretty efficiently