An American politician who most recently served as the US ambassador to Japan has slammed President Donald Trump’s trade and tariff approach towards Asia saying, his closeness towards Pakistan is a “major strategic blunder”, citing a deal signed with the Pakistan Crypto Council that a firm in which Trump’s son hold stakes.
Speaking at a podcast of MediasTouch, Rahm Israel Emanuel, American politician, diplomat who most recently served as United States ambassador to Japan from 2022 to 2025, sharply criticised Donald Trump’s Asia trade actions in Asia that he said undermined decades of American planning and regional partnerships meant to counter China.
The diplomat said Asian leaders often approached meetings with Trump with caution, unsure how to avoid confrontation. “They’re sitting there and part of their calculation is how not to be on the wrong side of Donald Trump and get out of this meeting with some wins, with least amount of embarrassment or danger in this area,” Rahm Emanuel said in the podcast.
He explained that during his time as ambassador, US diplomats worked to “reverse the playbook on China” by uniting regional allies that Beijing had sought to isolate.
“China tries to isolate Japan, a Korea, a Philippines, or Australia, where they used economic coercion. By bringing everybody together through India, Australia, Japan, the United States in the Quad, United States, Japan, Japan, Korea, in the Trilat, the same thing with the Philippines – we isolated the isolator, and China felt it, which is why they complained,” he said.
Threw it all away because Modi won’t say he deserves Nobel
According to the diplomat, the above-mentioned strategic framework began to unravel under Trump. “We haven’t even touched, we’re talking about Japan and Korea,” he said, and added that the Trump administration mismanaged India – a “major” counterweight against China.
“Our mismanagement of India, a major, major counterweight against China… the President of the United States has literally thrown away 40 years of meticulous strategic planning and preparation,” he said.
The former ambassador alleged that Donald Trump’s fallout with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was rooted in ego, claiming Trump “threw it all away because Modi would not say that the President deserves a Nobel Prize for the ceasefire that he worked out.”
The diplomat went on to allege financial impropriety linked to Pakistan. “The President, out of ego and then out of money from Pakistan that was paying both his son and Witkoff’s son. This is a major strategic blunder that China has used to their advantage,” he claimed, framing it as a turning point that benefited Beijing.
This was an apparent reference to Zach Witkoff, a co-founder of a company that signed a deal with the Pakistan Crypto Council in April 2025 to advance digital financial transactions. Donald Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, reportedly hold stakes in the firm.
On the economic front, he hit out Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on US allies, saying it ignored key strategic realities. “The United States is tariffing and putting tariffs on our allies without thinking through all the equities on defense spending, political alignment of our strategic interests vis-a-vis China, and then our economic integration, which is going to require friends and allies working together with the United States,” Emanuel said.
While he acknowledged that Trump’s chaotic style sometimes yielded results – citing Gaza as an example – the diplomat warned that the same unpredictability was counterproductive in Asia. “That chaotic process worked in the final days here in Gaza… That chaotic process is now a detriment. That same tactic is a detriment in confronting China,” he added.
