Trump's Past Pro-Japan, SK Nuclear Weapons Position

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapons_program#De_facto_nuclear_state advises:

"On 29 March 2016, then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested that Japan should develop its own nuclear weapons, claiming that it was becoming too expensive for the US to continue to protect Japan from countries such as China, North Korea, and Russia that already have their own nuclear weapons.^[50]

[endnote 50 is]

https://web.archive.org/web/20190611080231/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-japan-south-korea-might-need-nuclear-weapons/

"Donald Trump: Japan, South Korea might need nuclear weapons

By Stephanie Condon

March 29, 2016 / CBS News

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Tuesday night defended his assertion that more countries, such as Japan, South Korea or even Saudi Arabia, may need to develop their own nuclear weapons.

"You have so many countries already -- China, Pakistan, you have so many countries, Russia -- you have so many countries right now that have them," Trump said in a Milwaukee, Wisconsin town hall televised by CNN. "Now, wouldn't you rather, in a certain sense, have Japan have nuclear weapons when North Korea has nuclear weapons?"

Trump said that the United States spends too much money protecting countries like Japan and Saudi Arabia, but "we can't afford to do it anymore."

CNN moderator Anderson Cooper pointed out that it's been U.S. policy for decades to prevent Japan from getting a nuclear weapon. Trump responded, "Maybe it's going to have to be time to change, because so many people -- you have Pakistan has it, you have China has it. You have so many other countries are now having it."

Trump similarly suggested that Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weaponry in an interview with the New York Times last week.

Following Trump's remarks to the Times, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that his nation remains steadfastly against owning, making or allowing nuclear weapons. He said this position will "remain an important basic policy of the government."

Trump said he's in favor of potentially seeing countries like Japan develop nuclear weapons because "it's going to happen anyway."

"It's only a question of time," he said. "They're going to start having them or we have to get rid of them entirely.""

On 27 February 2022, former prime minister Shinzo Abe proposed that Japan should consider a nuclear sharing arrangement with the US similar to NATO.^[51] This includes housing American nuclear weapons on Japanese soil for deterrence.^[51] This plan comes in the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.^[51][52] Many Japanese politicians consider Vladimir Putin's threat to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state to be a game changer.^[52] "