President Donald Trump invoked Japan’s December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor as he spoke about recent US and Israeli attacks on Iran during a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at the White House on Thursday.
When asked by reporters why the US did not tell Japan or other allies about the decision to attack Iran, the president said: “We went in very hard and we didn’t tell anyone that we wanted surprise. Who knows better than Japan about surprise? Well, why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?”
“You believe in surprise, I think, more than we do,” Trump added, referring to the 1941 attack on the American navy at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which precipitated the United States’ entry into World War II.
Although they fought on opposite sides of a war that culminated in the United States dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the US and Japan signed a peace treaty in September 1951 and have been allies ever since.
Trump’s comment drew some laughter around the Oval Office, which is occupied by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other administration officials. Members of the Japanese delegation and members of the US and Japanese press corps were also in the room.
The president further explained why the element of surprise is important in the ongoing war with Iran, which began late last month after the US and Israel launched a joint operation against Iran.
“We had to surprise them and we did and because of that surprise, we did maybe 50% of what we did in the first two days – more than we expected. And if I go and tell everybody about it, it’s not a surprise anymore,” Trump said.
Trump joked about war with Iran last week, telling NBC News in a phone interview that the U.S. military had “totally destroyed” Kharg Island in previous strikes, but that “we might hit it a few more times for fun.”
Kharg Island is a strategic island off the coast of Iran that houses some of the nation’s oil infrastructure.
During the bilateral meeting, the president answered several other questions about US military operations in Iran, including an upcoming funding request from the Pentagon and questions about oil prices stemming from the ongoing war.
The Defense Department plans to request $200 billion from Congress to support ongoing military operations in Iran, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The president confirmed that number, but said the request for that amount was “for a lot of reasons, beyond what we’re talking about in Iran.”
“It’s a very volatile world, and the military equipment, the power of some of these weapons is unthinkable. You don’t even want to know about it. Oh, you could end this thing in two seconds if you wanted to,” Trump added.
He said oil prices have not jumped as high as he had hoped since the war began. The president’s comments come as prices have risen in recent weeks as Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key sea route in the Middle East.
“Everything was going great, the economy was great, oil prices were very low, even gasoline was going down,” Trump told reporters. “And I saw what was happening in Iran and I said, ‘I hate to do this excursion, but we have to do it,’ and I thought the numbers were bad.”
In making the decision to attack Iran, the president said, “Oil prices go up, the economy goes down a little bit.”
He said, “I thought it was bad, bad,” before adding, “It’s not bad and it’s going to be over soon.”
