Trump administration demands Japan triple troop-hosting payments to more than $19 billion over five years

The Trump administration has demanded that Japan triple its spending on hosting American troops to more than 3 trillion yen, about $19 billion, over five years starting in fiscal 2027, according to sources familiar with the matter cited by the Kyodo news agency. Japan is considering substantially increasing the payment to its key security ally to roughly 1.5 trillion yen, the sources said.

The demand concerns host-nation support, the money Japan pays towards the cost of stationing American forces on its soil, including wages for Japanese workers at US bases, utilities, the relocation of military exercises and improvements to facilities. Total outlays under the current five-year agreement, which runs from fiscal 2022 to fiscal 2026 through next March, were set at 1.06 trillion yen, or around 211 billion yen a year.

The coming package is expected to include spending to boost the resilience and survivability of US military facilities in Japan in the event of an attack, and could total more than 300 billion yen a year. Bilateral cost-sharing negotiations got into full gear in Tokyo this summer, and another round of talks is expected possibly next week, with the Japanese and US governments aiming to reach an agreement by the end of the year, the sources said.

A diplomatic source quoted by Kyodo summed up Tokyo's dilemma: "While 3 trillion yen over five years would be difficult to accept, there is a possibility to pay around 1.5 trillion yen." Japan has hosted a large American military presence since the post-war period under a bilateral security treaty, and funding levels are renegotiated every five years.

President Trump has long argued that Japan and other allies should pay more towards the cost of American forces stationed abroad, and he pressed Tokyo on the same issue during his first term. The current spending package was agreed under the previous administration of Joe Biden and includes funding for items such as the procurement of advanced systems to be used in joint training by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the US military.

The largest total Japan has paid under a five-year host-nation support agreement was 1.35 trillion yen for the period from fiscal 1996 to fiscal 2000. The figure now being sought by Washington would be more than double that, and roughly three times the current annual average of 211 billion yen.

For Tokyo, the negotiation is a balancing act. Japan values the alliance with Washington as the foundation of its security policy, particularly as tensions with China have risen, but a sharp increase in host-nation support would put pressure on a domestic budget already stretched by defence spending and social costs. The government is weighing a substantial increase while trying to keep the final figure well below the American demand.

The issue also reached a meeting between Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth in the Philippines on 28 October, and it is expected to feature in the run-up to the APEC summit in Shenzhen next week, where President Trump is due to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Japan's own relations with China have also been strained, with Beijing warning Tokyo over its stance on Taiwan.

If no agreement is reached by the time the current arrangement expires on 31 March 2027, the two sides would need an interim understanding to keep the funding flowing. For now, both governments say they aim to settle the matter by the end of the year, but the gap between Washington's demand and Tokyo's offer remains wide.