On January 25, the White House announced an upcoming state visit by Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and his wife Yuko Kishida on April 10, 2024. During the visit, the two leaders are expected to discuss ways in which the United States and Japan will continue to deepen partnership to continue to advance the two countries’ shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific and the international community.  

Kishida’s visit – the first state visit to the U.S. since he took office in 2021 – will build upon an impactful year of 2023 during which the two countries’ strategic visions grew more closely aligned and began to be translated into policy. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Japan Minister of Defense Hamada Yasukazu opened 2023 by signing the bilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Projects (RDT&E) and a bilateral, non-binding Security of Supply Arrangement (SOSA) between the U.S. Department of Defense and Japanese Ministry of Defense. Taken together, the MOU and SOSA help bring together industry and government partners. While the MOU provides an opportunity to operationalize the alliance and set the priorities based on complementary national defense and security strategies, SOSA looks to increase paths of acquisition between the two countries, secure defense related products, and provide a higher level of shared accountability and trust. 

In addition, the two countries announced that they will embark on a cooperative development program for the Glide-Phase Interceptor (GPI) in August 2023. Building upon the past success in cooperative development in ballistic missile defense programs. including Standard Missile (SM) Block-3 IIA, the GPI co-development creates further opportunities for U.S. and Japanese industries to leverage each other’s strengths to benefit the capability of the U.S. military and Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF).  

Finally, Japan and the United States ended 2023 by opening another door for defense industrial cooperation. On December 22, the Japanese government further relaxed its defense equipment export regulation to allow defense equipment that was produced under foreign license by Japanese manufacturers to be exported back to the countries that issued the original license. The revision was promptly put into practice with Japanese government’s decision to export Patriot missiles, which Japan produces under U.S. license, to the United States. While the scope of this relaxation remains limited and long overdue, it nonetheless can be a catalyst to accelerate integrated logistics between the two allies.  

These measures have opened avenues for cross investment between Japan and U.S. companies to coordinate on defense development, technology sharing, and future collaboration as Japan looks to develop emerging and foundational technologies, harness strengths to co-develop and co-produce munitions, and diversify and build more redundant supply chains. 

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