International relations between Japan and the United States began in the late 18th and early 19th century with the diplomatic but force-backed missions of U.S. ship captains James Glynn and Matthew C. Perry to the Tokugawa shogunate.

It was only after the passing of this older generation of diplomats and humanitarians, along with the evidence that many Americans believed all Asians to be alike with President Calvin Coolidge's signing of the Immigration Act of 1924 that Japanese militarists were able to gain control and pressure Japan into joining with the Axis Powers in World War II.

Japan surrendered, and was subjected to seven years of military occupation by the United States, during which the Americans under General Douglas MacArthur eliminated militarism and rebuilt the country's economic and political systems.

In the 1950s and 1960s Japan entered into a military alliance with the United States, and experienced unprecedented economic growth by sheltering under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, taking full advantage of U.S.-backed free trade schemes, and supplying American wars in Korea and Vietnam.

Under the command of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, who received orders from President Millard Fillmore, the expedition aimed to end Japan's 220-year-old policy of isolation by utilizing gunboat diplomacy if necessary.

[18] Aboard a black-hulled steam frigate, he ported Mississippi, Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna at Uraga Harbor near Edo (present-day Tokyo) on July 8, 1853, and he was met by representatives of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

[29] When King Kalākaua embarked on a world tour in 1881, he tried to forestall American ambitions by offering a plan to Emperor Meiji for putting Hawaii under the protection of the Empire of Japan with an arranged marriage between his niece Kaʻiulani and Japanese Prince Higashifushimi Yorihito.

Independently, Dutch forces served to delay the Japanese invasion long enough to destroy the oil wells, drilling equipment, refineries, and pipelines that Japan coveted as vital war assets.

The failure of these negotiations would serve as the catalyst for the fall of Japan's civilian government and the Army under General Tojo seizing total control of Japanese foreign policy, whose militarist faction was determined on a course of war with the United States.

According to Jonathan Monten:[79][80] To convert Japan into a stable liberal democracy, the United States established an extensive occupation structure under the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (SCAP), led by General Douglas MacArthur.

The SCAP agenda included not only framing a new constitution and organizing elections, but a wider array of institutional and economic reforms aimed at creating the conditions for a sustainable liberal democracy and pluralist society.

In the initial phase of the Occupation, the United States and the other Allied Powers, under the leadership of American general Douglas MacArthur sought to carry out a thoroughgoing transformation of Japanese politics and society, in an effort to prevent Japan from threatening the peace again in the future.

[81] Among other measures, the Occupation authorities pressured Emperor Hirohito into renouncing his divinity, disbanded the Japanese military, purged wartime leaders from serving in government, ordered the dissolution of the massive zaibatsu industrial conglomerates that had powered Japan's war machine, vastly increased land ownership with an extensive land reform, legalized labor unions and the Japan Communist Party, gave women the right to vote, and sought to decentralize and democratize the police and the education system.

[111] The situation calmed considerably when Prime Minister Sato Eisaku visited Washington in November 1969, and in a joint communiqué signed by him and President Richard Nixon, announced the United States had agreed to return Okinawa to Japan by 1972.

But these frictions proved manageable thanks to the political capital Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Satō and Japan's ruling conservatives gained by successfully negotiating Okinawan Reversion.

The Japanese government's firm and voluntary endorsement of the security treaty and the settlement of the Okinawa reversion question meant that two major political issues in Japan–United States relations were eliminated.

[112][115] The following month, the government was again surprised to learn that, without prior consultation, Nixon was imposing a 10 percent surcharge on imports, a decision explicitly aimed at hindering Japan's exports to the United States, and was unilaterally suspending the convertibility of dollars into gold, which would eventually lead to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed currency exchange rates.

[117] On the economic front, Japan sought to ease trade frictions by agreeing to Orderly Marketing Arrangements, which limited exports on products whose influx into the United States was creating political problems.

[119] Prime Minister Kaifu Toshiki's pledges of support for East European and Middle Eastern countries in 1990 fit the pattern of Japan's willingness to share greater responsibility for world stability.

[131] A commercially successful but critically panned 1991 book authored by US-based husband-and-wife team George Friedman and Meredith LeBard even warned of a "Coming War with Japan" caused by increased friction in trade relations.

[134] They stressed that until Moscow followed its moderation in Europe with major demobilization and reductions in its forces positioned against the United States and Japan in the Pacific, Washington and Tokyo needed to remain militarily prepared and vigilant.

In its first months, the new administration of incoming President George H. W. Bush negotiated with Japan to collaborate on a project that would produce a Japanese-made jet fighter, the Mitsubishi F-2, based on the American F-16 Fighting Falcon.

[136] On March 12, 1990, Bush met with former Prime Minister of Japan Noboru Takeshita for an hour to discuss shared economic issues and "the fact that their solution will require extraordinary efforts on both sides of the Pacific.

"[145] Miyazawa was in no position to object since he had a record of making similar gaffes himself, such as his earlier suggesting that America's economic difficulties were due to Americans lacking a strong work ethic.

[152] However, in the 2012 Japanese general election, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party swept back into power, ensuring that relations with the United States would return to their prior, more stable footing.

In 2015, during remarks welcoming Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the White House, President Barack Obama thanked Japan for its cultural contributions to the United States by saying: "This visit is a celebration of the ties of friendship and family that bind our peoples.

However, despite the inflammatory rhetoric, Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe managed to build a cordial relationship with Trump, and succeeded in negotiating a bilateral trade deal in 2019 that lowered tariffs between the two nations.

[162] After the White House meeting between Prime Minister Suga and President Joe Biden in April 2021, the leader level joint statement mentioned Taiwan for the first time in fifty years, stating that stability there was important for the region and that cross-strait issues should be resolved peacefully.

In secret negotiations that began in 1969 Washington sought unrestricted use of its bases for possible conventional combat operations in Korea, Taiwan, and South Vietnam, as well as the emergency re-entry and transit rights of nuclear weapons.

In July 2024, defense chiefs and diplomats from both nations agreed on significant upgrades to their alliance, including a revamp of U.S. command in Japan, which would grant it a direct leadership role over American forces.