Former prime minister of Japan (autumn 2024–October 2025). A longtime gadfly within the Liberal Democratic Party, it took him 15 years and several attempts to win its leadership contest. He then presided over the loss of the party's Lower House majority, leaving him leading a first-ever LDP minority government.
Described Donald Trump's tariffs as a "national crisis". His insistence that America remove its 25% tariff on car imports caused Japan to lose its priority position in trade talks, with India briefly taking its place. Told parliament in May 2025 that Japan's fiscal situation was "undoubtedly extremely poor, worse than Greece".
After the LDP and Komeito lost their upper-house majority in July 2025 for the first time since 2013, he announced a trade deal with America lowering tariffs on Japanese cars and most other goods to 15%—but it still left Japan facing higher tariffs than before Trump came to power, and by completing the deal he made himself look expendable. Trump's executive order enacting the bargain paired the 15% tariff with a hazily defined $550bn fund for Japanese investments into America that Washington claims the right to direct.
He stepped down as LDP president in September 2025, pre-empting a forced leadership vote. After being pushed out, he published reflections on why Japan's leaders were unable to avoid the second world war—the lack of civilian control over the armed forces, a divided parliament, and a media that fuelled nationalism—widely read as a rebuke of his successor Takaichi Sanae and a warning against illiberal nationalism. Other possible successors had included Koizumi Shinjiro, a 44-year-old son of a former prime minister.
"The picture's pretty bleak, gentlemen... The world's climates are changing, the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut."