Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel Says He Played Role in Reinvigorating Japan-U.S. Relations

By Atsuko Matsumoto / Japan News Staff Writer

19:00 JST, January 10, 2025

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel looked back at his three-year tenure and was confident that he played a role in reinvigorating the Japan-U.S. relationship, and also helped build stronger multilateral ties in East Asia, the envoy said Friday in Tokyo.

“Did I play a role in reinvigorating, reimagining and reenergizing [the] relationship? I think I played that role. I had good days and bad days, but I think I played that role,” Emanuel said at a final press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan before his departure.

Emphasizing the security cooperation currently in place, he said, “All reflecting a new era and a new period of time and a new deterrence between the United States and their allies.”

“Just recently, when the DPRK [North Korea] launched a missile, in real time, the three nations were sharing intelligence about that launch,” the ambassador said, referring to the trilateral security framework between Japan, the United States and South Korea.

On the cooperation between Japan, the United States and the Philippines, he said, “In the spring, there will also be a major exercise in the Philippine area, where Japan will be — for the first time ever — a full partner in that exercise.”

Emanuel also recalled the significance of the 2023 summit meeting between then Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at Camp David, saying: “The day after … was not the day that China wanted to see. The strategic landscape in the Indo-Pacific fundamentally changed.”

Emanuel said he believed the trilateral framework would continue to progress but added that it would require work to nurture and develop it.

“I don’t have a lot of regrets. I do wish we had been able to get to this earlier, to get into the DNA of the trilateral,” said the ambassador. “I think it’s there, but I think it requires a lot of time and work and seasoning.”

Emanuel, a longtime Democrat, has also served in key positions during the administrations of former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

He will leave the post in Japan this month due to a change of government in his country, where U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is preparing to take office on Jan. 20.

When asked about whether he intends to take part in the political landscape after the new administration takes over, the ambassador said, “I will engage because I think — whether domestically, internationally … ideas and principles are worth fighting about, and not that you have to fight, sometimes you would agree.”

Emanuel added: “I’m not planning on leaving the field of public discourse and public debate. First of all, that would not come naturally to an Emanuel — to be silent.”

He also spoke about Biden’s recent announcement to block Nippon Steel Corp.’s planned acquisition of United States Steel Corp., at Friday’s press conference.

“The United States-Japan alliance is deeper and stronger than any single, one economic transaction or business transaction,” Emanuel said.

Stressing that it is now a legal matter, he added, “I know one thing, having been both a mayor [of Chicago], chief of staff and a senior advisor to a president, you don’t make comments with an open pending legal case, so I’m not gonna do it.”

Emanuel, at one point became tearful, saying: “[That] both a son and a grandson of an immigrant could reach the level of one day having one of the highest honors of representing that country overseas as a voice of that country — its values and its ideals — is only possible in a country like America.”