My latest publication… an analysis of the state of the U.S.-Japan alliance 18 months into President Trump’s second term…was just published by the Italian Institute for International Political Studies. Thanks to Axel Berkofsky and Guido Casanova for the invitation to contribute to ISPI’s latest “dossier”–organized under the theme of “U.S. Alliances in Asia Under Trump.”

You can read my analysis on the ISPI website (*no paywall*) by clicking the link below. Suggested citation:

Adam P. Liff, “The US-Japan Alliance under Trump 2.0: Still ‘Indispensable’ for America,” Italian Institute for International Political Studies, July 9, 2026.

A partial excerpt:

Driven by the urgent need to strengthen regional deterrence and secure increasingly vulnerable supply chains, Japan is now widely seen in Washington as America’s most important partner in Asia, if not the world. Indeed, over the past decade, the view that Tokyo is America’s “indispensable ally” has become firmly entrenched in US foreign policy circles. 

Even President Donald Trump, the world’s most famous alliance-skeptic American, has over the past 18 months repeatedly joined Japan’s prime ministers – first Shigeru Ishiba and now Sanae Takaichi – in calling for a “new Golden Age” of the US-Japan alliance.

To be sure, smile-filled summitry and abstract calls for an alliance “golden age” mask significant anxieties in Japan (as well as among many Americans) about the direction of US foreign policy, as well as sub-surface frictions in bilateral relations. Even so, relative to many other major democratic US treaty allies, Japan has – at least so far – weathered “Trump 2.0” remarkably well…