Japanese culture has a thing about saving face. Once Trump threw out the 200bn request, the CEO was about to choke. Trump knew the CEO couldn't say 'no' because he would look weak. Kind of a dirty move, imo.
We don't need to feel bad about taking advantage of other cuture's stupid quirks. If saying no is weak, but saying no would have put Japan first for the Japanese people, then their culture is wrong. If he had said anything along the lines of "Sorry Mr President, we want to be good partners with you but we also need to be Japan first" then THAT would have been strong, and I don't think Trump would have pushed him.
Japanese culture has a thing about saving face. Once Trump threw out the 200bn request, the CEO was about to choke. Trump knew the CEO couldn't say 'no' because he would look weak. Kind of a dirty move, imo.
We don't need to feel bad about taking advantage of other cuture's stupid quirks. If saying no is weak, but saying no would have put Japan first for the Japanese people, then their culture is wrong. If he had said anything along the lines of "Sorry Mr President, we want to be good partners with you but we also need to be Japan first" then THAT would have been strong, and I don't think Trump would have pushed him.
I would have tried to meet in the middle with 150B