President Trump Participates in a Bilateral Meeting, Mar. 19, 2026

Yes sir, our missiles—missiles being shot are down over 90% since the beginning. We attacked drones down 90% since the beginning, which is a reflection of overwhelming firepower. But you mentioned the most important part, Mr. President: their defense industrial base. If you can't make more of it in the future, then you have a limited supply. And so we're going after all of their defense contractors that make all of their exquisite weapons and ensuring that even if they wanted to rebuild more launchers or more missiles, they couldn't in the future. And that's a level of devastation for their military that they've never seen before.

So we have, in literally two weeks, we've demolished their navy, their air force, all technology is gone, all communication is gone, and all of the leaders are gone. Other than that, they're doing quite well. Okay, how about one more question for the Prime Minister. For the Prime Minister. Let me pick a beautiful-looking person from—a beautiful person from Japan. A question for the Prime Minister. Go ahead. Oh, he doesn't believe he's beautiful. He's a little bit shy. Go ahead, please.

Of course, Japan and the U.S. are very good friends, but one question. Why didn't you tell U.S. allies in Europe and Asia, like Japan, about the war before attacking Iran? So we are very confused about it, Japanese citizens.

Well, one thing you don't want to signal too much. You know, when we go in, we went in very hard, and we didn't tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Okay? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor? Okay? Right? You see, he's asking me—now, you believe in surprise I think much more so than us. And we had a surprise and we did. And because of that surprise, we knocked out—the first two days we probably knocked out 50% of what we—and much more than we anticipated doing. So if I go and tell everybody about it, it's no longer a surprise, right? Okay. One more—one more—one more for the Prime Minister.

Are you going to for the Prime Minister? Yes, and for the Prime Minister. Thank you very much. Japan's biggest concern is China. Now they are giving us export control and, you know, very harsh terms to criticize us. So would you plan—would you plan to bring up the relationship between Japan and China while you are there in China?

Well, I'll be going to China very quickly. But I think I'd really like to have the Prime Minister talk about China because I know they have a little bit of an edgy relationship and I'd just like to know where it stands, how you're doing with China. So, please.

日本はいつも中国に対してオープンです。対話はオープンにしています。それから、まあ冷静に対応しています。で、とにかく、あの米中関係も含めてですね、これが地域の安定、それから、あの世界のサプライチェーン、えこれに貢献するものであることを願っています。日本は常にオープンです。

First of all, Japan has been consistently open to dialogue with China. And also second, we have been addressing our relations with China in a calm manner. And also, speaking of the U.S.-China relationship, my sincere hope is that the relationship will be something conducive for regional security and also ensuring the global supply chain in the world. Once again, I would like to reiterate that Japan has been consistently open to dialogue with China.

And I think we're going to have a great trip. The trip has been postponed for about a month and a half. It's been reset, and we look forward to it. And I'll be—I'll be speaking Japan's praises when I'm in China with President Xi. But we have—but we're going to have some good talks today, and I think mostly about trade because they want to do a lot of trade. They're a tremendous purchaser of our energy, our oil, gas, from in particular Alaska. Because Alaska, believe it or not, is very close. It's much closer than any other source. It just—it seems a little cold compared to but it's just a short—it's just a short trip. So that's something that we both talked—we'll be talking. We'll be discussing trade and a lot of the talk will be about energy. Thank you very much, everybody.