From the Liveblog of
Thursday, March 19, 2026
Trump draws parallel between Pearl Harbor and US strikes on Iran in meeting with Japanese PM
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleUS President Donald Trump draws a parallel between US strikes on Iran and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor decades ago, as he defended the war against Tehran at a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Washington.
“We wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” Trump says when a journalist asks why he had not told allies about his war plans.
“You believe in surprise, I think much more so than us.”
Takaichi’s eyes widen, and she shifts in her chair as Trump, seated beside her in the Oval Office, evoked the moment that drew the US into World War Two.
Q: "Why didn't you tell U.S. allies…about the war before attacking Iran?"
President Trump: "We wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor?" pic.twitter.com/esV9iyvMiV
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 19, 2026
The Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941, killed 2,390 Americans, and the U.S. declared war on Japan the next day.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “a date which will live in infamy.”
The U.S. defeated Japan in August 1945, days after US atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.
The Times of Israel Community.