The new alliance strategy
The EU and Japan announce closer cooperation to secure supply chains and boost defence industries. They want greater independence from China (rare earths) and from the US (defence and military).
TOKYO/BRUSSELS (own report) – The EU and Japan are seeking to intensify their cooperation. A key motive is to gain greater independence from both China and the United States. This was the outcome of the latest EU-Japan summit held yesterday in Tokyo, with both sides looking for ways of becoming less reliant on China for rare earths and of generally achieving a greater degree of economic independence in many areas. They are also pushing for a return to a “stable” economic environment – clearly a response to the highly unpredictable Trump administration with its policy of imposing punitive tariffs even on close allies. Arms production was also at the centre of talks. The EU and Japan are aiming for closer cooperation between their weapons manufacturers as part of a move to rapidly enlarge their “defence industry base”. The EU is taking a similar approach in talks with a number of countries. Partnerships are emerging with the United Kingdom, Canada, South Korea and others. The EU has launched arms production initiatives under build-up schemes under the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) programme. Arms producers can be given loans of up to 150 billion euros on favourable terms. In future, even non-EU allies can, to a certain extent, be offered benefits to ramp up their arms industry. Government advisers in Berlin are talking about a new “alliance strategy” – without the United States.
Sending out a signal
The EU and Japan want to work more closely together in future. This goes in particular for the military and armaments field, for the independence of supply chains, and for efforts to stabilise international organisations. These moves were agreed by the two sides at their summit in Tokyo yesterday, Wednesday. The priority will be to strengthen their respective “defence industrial base”.[1] To this end, a Defence Industry Dialogue is to be initiated to further partnerships between the European and Japanese defence industries. In addition, both sides are committed to a “stable and predictable” economic order and want to work together to “strengthen and diversify critical minerals supply chains”. The push for a more predictable business environment is clearly directed against US policy, now centred on the arbitrary use of tariffs to blackmail other countries into making concessions. And the discussion of critical raw materials, especially in the procurement of rare earths, is about gaining independence from China. In addition, the EU and Japan have verbally reaffirmed a commitment to the United Nations. However, as a German reporter frankly commented “the summit’s key addressees” were China and the US.[2]
‘Stability and opportunity’
Explaining the political background, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech on the occasion of receiving an honorary degree from Keio University that the EU was “obviously working to restore our trade partnership with the United States on a more solid foundation.”[3] But she also acknowledged that 87 per cent of global trade is with other countries and that many of them were seeking “stability and opportunity”. That was why the EU was striving to “deepen our ties” at its summit meeting with Japan. This was why, she said, “countries from all over the world come to us to do business: from India to Indonesia, from South America to South Korea, from Canada to New Zealand.” All these countries and the EU were “trying to forge our strength and independence”, which could only be achieved “by working together”. It is noteworthy that von der Leyen did not mention the US, i.e. the closest ally of both the EU and Japan, in this context.
Ambivalent context
The political context of the EU-Japan summit is ambivalent. In recent years, the EU and some individual member states, especially Germany, have been keen to strengthen their relations with Japan. The background was the great power struggle against China and the West’s desire to forge closer ties between the transatlantic powers and allied countries in the Asia-Pacific region in. This is why NATO has also been strengthening its contacts with Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand (german-foreign-policy.com reported [4]). The military alliance continues to pursue this plan. However, there have recently been signs of discontent spreading among the Asia-Pacific allies over the Trump administration and its demand for excessive increases in military budgets. Indeed, three of the four heads of state and government from the region invited to the NATO summit in The Hague in June decided at short notice to cancel. Only the prime minister of New Zealand’s right-wing government attended. On Tuesday, Japan was able to conclude a tariff deal with the Trump administration that turned out to be not quite as disastrous as feared. Nevertheless, it will still damage the Japanese economy – and no one can be sure that Trump won’t return soon to the game of blackmailing his allies into making further concessions by arbitrarily raising US import tariffs.
Expanding the ‘defence industrial base’
The EU has now begun to intensify its cooperation with Western countries and allies in the Asia-Pacific region on a bilateral level. The bilateral approach is explicitly intended to proceed without American involvement. Take the case of defence partnerships. The central instrument here is the EU’s Security Action For Europe programme (SAFE) under which the European Commission provides cheap loans to finance expensive armament projects. Although SAFE-financed projects are in principle only open to EU countries, the scheme provides for all sorts of exceptions. Not only does it offer opportunities for countries in the European Economic Area (EEA), such as Norway, but also for states with which the EU has concluded ‘security agreements’. So far, these have primarily been with the UK, Canada, Japan and South Korea, while Australia has begun talks on such a deal. But the EU also sees advantages in involving other countries whose industrial capacities can be tapped for expanding arms production. The cooperating countries, in turn, may benefit from the favourable loans and a bigger market for arms sales. Brussels is now considering, for instance, ways of drawing on production capacity in India. A key prerequisite would again be the early conclusion of a security agreement with New Delhi.[5]
Becoming ‘a pole of its own’
So, working through SAFE, the EU’s aim is to bind not only European and North American (Canadian) countries but also countries from the Asia-Pacific region more closely to itself. Brussels seeks in the long run not only to broaden the base of its arms industry – much as the US has done and continues to do with its F-35 coalition or with AUKUS – but also to “create a new network of partnerships” with the European cartel of states at its core. This new “alliance strategy” is spelled out in a recent analysis by the SWP think-tank (German Institute for International and Security Affairs).[6] The analysis goes on to say that the most important prerequisite for the success of such a strategy is that “the EU makes itself a more attractive partner”. And the way to do that is, according to the analysis, to make extensive investments in Europe’s own arms factories. Militarising the economy is what makes the EU of interest to other countries in terms of security partnerships. The SWP article concludes that the EU is well advised to link cooperation on armaments projects “with broader cooperation”, especially in trade policy. Strengthening security with partners beyond the US is, it says, strategically important: “If Europeans want to avoid becoming a pawn of foreign powers in a world increasingly characterised by spheres of interest, they must summon the strength to become a pole of their own.”
[1] Japan-EU Summit 2025. Joint Statement. Tokyo, 23.07.2025.
[2] Martin Kölling: Druck durch China und USA – EU und Japan kooperieren enger. handelsblatt.com 23.07.2025.
[3] Von der Leyen: We are working towards the agreement with the US, but 87 percent of our trade is with other countries. agenzianova.com 23.07.2025.
[4] See also: Die NATO am Pazifik and NATO Globally.
[5], [6] Nicolai von Ondarza: Konturen einer Allianzstrategie der EU. SWP-Aktuell 2025/A 28. Berlin, 10.06.2025.
