Why the US is pressing Japan for help with Iran

March 20, 2026·59 min·5 clips

Donald Trump mocks Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor while pressing Prime Minister Takeuchi for support against Iran.

A White House visit sets the frame. Emma Nelson opens with Donald Trump's claim that the US does not need anything from Japan, even as he says others should step up. Japan is under pressure. The programme asks whether the prime minister can keep the US president on side. Brussels then comes in. EU leaders gather with Hungary's veto on a €90 billion loan for Ukraine hanging over a crowded agenda. The mood stays grave. The excerpt then turns to a Financial Times interview with Rob Yetton, presented as one of his first big interviews as the new prime minister of the Netherlands. His message is blunt. European leaders, in this reading, are being told to do their jobs and stop complaining. The phrasing lands awkwardly. A correspondent dryly suggests the headline could have been about how not to win friends and influence people in the EU. Still, the point is clear. Yetton's pitch puts the Netherlands near the centre of European politics, after years of caution around some reform language. He reaches for history. The Netherlands is described as a founder of the European Union and a bridge between France and Germany. That bridge matters now. The familiar EU locomotive sounds less smooth than Europe needs it to be. The Hague sounds different here. Rather than blame the EU, Yetton points at national capitals and argues for Europe to act, not drift.

As heard by us

A steady foreign-policy brief that links Japan, Iran, Brussels, and Slovenia.

This Globalist episode frames Donald Trump's call for Japan to do more on Iran as the day's anchor, then moves neatly to Brussels and Slovenia. Emma Nelson keeps the links between those stories in view, so the hour feels connected rather than chopped into separate headlines.

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Why you'd press play

You want the Japan pressure story with a wider European map around it.

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