logo
Meet the 'Japanese Trump', who won big in elections

Meet the 'Japanese Trump', who won big in elections

First Post2 days ago
Sohei Kamiya, a former supermarket manager and English teacher, has created a stir in Japan. His Sanseito (participate in politics) party has won 14 seats in Japan's Upper House. Kamiya is called the 'Japanese Trump' for his penchant to attack immigrant, foreigners and rants against taxes and 'globalists'. But who is Kamiya? read more
Sohei Kamiya, leader of the Sanseito party, during an election campaign in Tosu, southwestern Japan. AP
Donald Trump changed the political game and he came onto the scene in 2015.
Ever since his ascendancy to the Oval Office, Trump has spawned a number of political imitators.
You have Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, also known as the 'Trump of the tropics', Javier Milei in Argentina, and Rodrigo Duterte in The Philippines.
Now, Sohei Kamiya in Japan can be added to that list.
Kamiya, whose Sanseito (participate in politics) party has won 14 seats in Japan's Upper House, has created a stir.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
This comes as the country's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost seats and right-wing parties gained in the in parliament's upper house.
But who is Kamiya, 47, known as the 'Japanese Trump'? What do we know about him?
Let's take a closer look:
Who is he?
Little is known about Kamiya, a former supermarket manager and English teacher.
Kamiya as a young man worked in his father's business which later went bankrupt.
However, Kamiya grew disgruntled with the LDP's fundraising driven culture and left the party.
He founded Sanseito soon afterwards.
Kamiya is a reservist in Japan's military – known as the Self-Defence Force.
Kamiya, a populist, has claimed to be inspired by Trump's 'bold, political style.'
Much like Trump, he has fanned the flames of 'globalists' trying to take over Japan, railed against elites, immigrants and taxes.
'Under globalism, multinational companies have changed Japan's policies for their own purposes,' Kamiya said at one rally in Kagoshima 'If we fail to resist this foreign pressure, Japan will become a colony!'
He has also made a fervent appeal to Japan's identity.
'Japan must be a society that serves the interests of the Japanese people', he has said.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Kamiya founded his Sanseito party in 2020 – at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said he did so by 'gathering people on the Internet'.
Sanseito during the pandemic took a harsh tone on vaccines and slammed the 'global elite'.
The party's YouTube channel has over 360,000 subscribers.
It relies on small donors.
While Kamiya didn't run this year – he won a seat in Japan's 248 Upper House in 2022 – he has resonated strongly with Japan's youth.
He has campaigned extensively across the country for his party's nearly six dozen candidates.
The party itself polled third in a nationwide race.
It has increased its base in the upper house from just 2 seats, including Kamiya himself, to 14 seats.
In the run-up to the polls, it became well-known for its 'Japan First' platform – against the influx of immigrants and over-tourism.
Japan in recent years has more and more opened itself up on immigration – mainly to combat low birth rates and an aging population.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Kamiya's complaints about stationary wages, spikes in inflation and costs of living have drawn plaudits from youth.
'Right now, Japanese people's lives are getting harder and harder,' Kamiya said. 'More and more foreigners are coming (to Japan)'.
Japan's Sanseito party leader Sohei Kamiya (R) shakes hands with candidate Saya (L) at a vote-counting centre in Tokyo on July 20, 2025. Image- AFP
'I am attending graduate school but there are no Japanese around me. All of them are foreigners,' said Yu Nagai, a 25-year-old student who voted for Sanseito earlier on Sunday. III
'When I look at the way compensation and money are spent on foreigners, I think that Japanese people are a bit disrespected,' Nagai said after casting his ballot at a polling station in Tokyo's Shinjuku ward.
The party has suggesting capping the number of foreign residents in each town or city, setting limits on immigration and benefits that foreigners can avail of.
The party also wants to make it more difficult for foreigners to become citizens.
Japan, the world's fastest aging society, saw foreign-born residents hit a record of about 3.8 million last year.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
That is still just three per cent of the total population, a much smaller fraction than in the United States and Europe, but comes amid a tourism boom that has made foreigners far more visible across the country.
What about Sanseito?
Sanseito has called for stricter espionage laws, more tax cuts and renewable energy.
Sanseito is being compared to the Maga movement in America, the AfD in Germany and Reform in UK.
Much like Maga, it too is anti-vaccine.
'Sanseito has become the talk of the town, and particularly here in America, because of the whole populist and anti-foreign sentiment,' Joshua Walker, head of the US-based non-profit Japan Society, said. 'It's more of a weakness of the LDP and Ishiba than anything else'.
Critics have decried Sanseito's manifesto as 'xenophobic and discriminatory'.
The party has also adopted a strong support for 'traditional gender roles'.
Kamiya, ahead of the polls, attempted to tamp down on some of the party's contentious ideas.
He also attempted to woo female voters.
However, since the polls, Kamiya has adopted a far more stringent tone.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
'The public came to understand that the media was wrong and Sanseito was right,' Kamiya said.
'The phrase Japanese First was meant to express rebuilding Japanese people's livelihoods by resisting globalism. I am not saying that we should completely ban foreigners or that every foreigner should get out of Japan,' he added.
Experts say Kamiya could fill the vacuum in Japanese politics left by Shinzo Abe.
'The LDP has been unable to hold onto the revisionist and xenophobic element that used to be contained in the Abe faction,' said Koichi Nakano, a Harvard-affiliated political scholar.
Increased pressure on Ishiba
Though the results have weakened Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's grip on power further, he has vowed to remain party leader.
While the ballot does not directly determine whether Ishiba's administration will fall, it heaps pressure on the embattled leader who also lost control of the more powerful lower house in October.
Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and coalition partner Komeito returned 47 seats, short of the 50 seats it needed to ensure a majority in the 248-seat upper chamber in an election where half the seats were up for grabs.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba attends a press conference at the headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Tokyo on July 21, 2025, the day after the prime minister's coalition lost its upper house majority. File Image/Pool via Reuters
That comes on top of its worst showing in 15 years in October's lower house election, a vote which has left Ishiba's administration vulnerable to no-confidence motions and calls from within his own party for leadership change.
Speaking late on Sunday evening after exit polls closed, Ishiba told NHK he 'solemnly' accepted the 'harsh result'.
'We are engaged in extremely critical tariff negotiations with the United States…we must never ruin these negotiations. It is only natural to devote our complete dedication and energy to realizing our national interests,' he later told TV Tokyo.
Asked whether he intended to stay on as premier, he said 'that's right'.
Japan, the world's fourth largest economy, faces a deadline of August 1 to strike a trade deal with the United States or face punishing tariffs in its largest export market.
The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party finished second with 22 seats.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump deals bring some clarity for world's manufacturing base
Trump deals bring some clarity for world's manufacturing base

Time of India

time5 minutes ago

  • Time of India

Trump deals bring some clarity for world's manufacturing base

Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads After months of uncertainty, President Donald Trump 's latest tariff deals are providing clarity on the broad contours of a new trade landscape for the world's biggest manufacturing on Tuesday announced a deal with Japan that sets tariffs on the nation's imports at 15%, including for autos — by far the biggest component of the trade deficit between the countries.A separate agreement with the Philippines set a 19% rate, the same level as Indonesia agreed and a percentage point below Vietnam's 20% baseline level, signaling that the bulk of Southeast Asia is likely to get a similar rate.'We live in a new normal where 10% is the new zero and so 15% and 20% doesn't seem so bad if everyone else got it,' said Trinh Nguyen, senior economist for emerging Asia at Natixis. At a 15%-20% tariff level, it's still profitable for US companies to import from abroad rather than produce similar goods at home, she US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he'll meet his Chinese counterparts in Stockholm next week for their third round of talks aimed at extending a tariff truce and widening the discussions. That suggests a continuing stabilization in ties between the world's two largest economies after the US recently eased chip curbs and China resumed rare earths exports.'We're getting along with China very well,' Trump told reporters on Tuesday. 'We have a very good relationship.'Throw it all together and a level of predictability is finally emerging after six months of tariff threats that had at one point jacked up tariff levels to 145% on China and near 50% on some smaller Asian exporters. Investors cheered the moves, with Asian shares rising the most in a month and contracts for the S&P 500 up 0.2%. The Nikkei-225 index in Japan jumped 3.2%, with Toyota Motor Corp. and other carmakers leading the gains.'What's been interesting to me is that equity markets still have been fairly rosy about the changes,' Albert Park, chief economist at the Asian Development Bank, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. 'I'm not sure they've priced in fully all of the effects that are likely to occur from the disruption of higher tariff rates.'Back in April, Trump hit the pause button on the steepest levies after a rare combination of weakening US stocks, bonds and the dollar showed investors were unnerved by his protectionist salvos. That bought time for policymakers from Tokyo, Manila and across the globe to negotiate more palatable the latest deals bring some relief, key questions remain. The Trump administration is still considering a range of sectoral tariffs on goods like semiconductors and pharmaceuticals that will be critical for Asian economies including Taiwan and India — both of which have yet to announce tariff agreements with the Korea is also more exposed to sectoral tariffs, even though the Japan deal provides a potential template for new President Lee Jae Trump moves quickly on talks with countries accounting for the bulk of the US trade deficit, he has said he may hit around 150 smaller countries with a blanket rate of between 10% and 15%.With some certainty on tariff levels now emerging, businesses with complex supply chains across Asia and still reliant of the US consumer can start to game out how they'll shift operations to minimize the hit to like the first trade war in 2018, the latest tariff announcements are likely to spur companies to increasingly shift production outside of China. The average tariff rate on the world's second-largest economy remains the highest in the region, and continued White House pressure on the nation's technology and trade ambitions means companies may find more stability and industry groups have been flagging for months that uncertainty is worse than tariffs for investment. The manufacturing sector across the ASEAN region saw the most notable weakening since August 2021, according to S&P PMI, led by a sharper decrease in new orders, major job cuts and weaker purchasing front-loading of shipments from Asia to the US to get ahead of the incoming levies will likely slow once the new rates kick in. While there's relief that tariff rates for Southeast Asian economies and 15% for Japan are lower than some of Trump's earlier threats, the reality is that they're far higher than they were before he took latest deals 'continue the trend of tariff rates gravitating towards the 15-20% range that President Trump recently indicated to be his preferred level for the blanket rate instead of 10% currently,' Barclays Plc analysts including Brian Tan wrote in a note. That skews risks to GDP growth forecasts for Asia 'to the downside,' they US consumers who have so far been spared the tariff ticket shock, economists warn there's likely to be some pass through in the months ahead. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists now expect the US baseline 'reciprocal' tariff rate will rise from 10% to 15% — an outcome that threatens to fuel inflation and weigh on economic Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has argued he wants to see where tariffs land and how they filter through the economy before cutting interest rates — much to the annoyance of now, the US president is hailing a win on trade, and investors seem overall relieved.'I just signed the largest trade deal in history — I think maybe the largest deal in history — with Japan,' Trump said at an event at the White House on Tuesday after announcing the deal on social media. 'It's a great deal for everybody.'

Flurry of US trade deals offers relief for some Asian countries, while others wait
Flurry of US trade deals offers relief for some Asian countries, while others wait

New Indian Express

time5 minutes ago

  • New Indian Express

Flurry of US trade deals offers relief for some Asian countries, while others wait

BANGKOK: US President Donald Trump has announced trade deals with Japan and a handful of other Asian countries that will relieve some pressure on companies and consumers from sharply higher tariffs on their exports to the United States. A deal with China is under negotiation, with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying an Aug. 12 deadline might be postponed again to allow more time for talks. Steep tariffs on US imports of steel and aluminum remain, however, and many other countries, including South Korea and Thailand, have yet to clinch agreements. Overall, economists say the tariffs inevitably will dent growth in Asia and the world. Deals reached so far ahead of Trump's Aug. 1 deadline Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced a deal Wednesday that will impose 15% tariffs on US imports from Japan, down from Trump's proposed 25% 'reciprocal' tariffs. It was a huge relief for automakers like Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda, whose shares jumped by double digits in Tokyo. Trump also announced trade deals with the Philippines and Indonesia. After meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., Trump said the import tax on products from his country would be subject to a 19% tariff, down just 1% from the earlier threat of a 20% tariff. Indonesia also will face a 19% tariff, down from the 32% rate Trump had recently said would apply, and it committed to eliminating nearly all of its trade barriers for imports of American goods. Earlier, Trump announced that Vietnam's exports would face a 20% tariff, with double that rate for goods transshipped from China, though there has been no formal announcement.

Experts Hail PM Modi's Visit as Key Step in Rebuilding India-Maldives Trust
Experts Hail PM Modi's Visit as Key Step in Rebuilding India-Maldives Trust

Time of India

time5 minutes ago

  • Time of India

Experts Hail PM Modi's Visit as Key Step in Rebuilding India-Maldives Trust

'Stopped India-Pakistan Nuclear War': Trump's Explosive Claim, Repeats 'Five Jets Were Shot Down' US President Donald Trump has once again claimed that five fighter jets were shot down during the India-Pakistan conflict following the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack. Trump also claimed that he personally intervened to stop a potential nuclear war between the two nations, using trade leverage. However, his comments have stirred controversy in India, especially as he did not clarify which side lost jets, nor did he provide any evidence. India had earlier confirmed that Operation Sindoor was a targeted, non-escalatory strike on terror camps in PoK. Trump's repeated claims, now adding a dramatic jet loss tally, raise questions about foreign intervention, disinformation, and global narratives. Was it an exaggeration or a classified truth?#india #pakistan #donaldtrump #opsindoor #pok #trumpclaims #operationsindoor #indiausrelations #indiapakconflict #fighterjets #nuclearwar #toi #toibharat #bharat #trending #breakingnews #indianews 16.2K views | 3 hours ago

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store