When asked by a reporter why the United States didn’t tell Japan or other allies about attacking Iran prior to its operation, President Trump made a comparison to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. “For one thing, you don’t want to signal too much,” Trump responded. “We went in very hard and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” he continued. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” Trump said. “You believe in surprise, I think, much more than us,” he added. Trump made the comments during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. When asked why the U.S. didn’t tell allies about attacking Iran prior to the strikes, President Trump says, “we wanted surprise.” “Who knows better about surprise better than Japan. Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” Trump says, alongside Japanese Prime Minister Sanae… pic.twitter.com/NNgQaxg6Wl — CBS News (@CBSNews) March 19, 2026 NBC News shared further: During the bilateral meeting, the president answered several other questions about U.S. military operations in Iran, including questions about an upcoming funding request from the Pentagon and rising oil prices that have stemmed from the ongoing war. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the Defense Department plans to request $200 billion from Congress to support ongoing military operations in Iran. The president confirmed that number, but said the request for that amount is “for a lot of reasons, beyond even what we’re talking about in Iran.” “This is a very volatile world, and the military equipment, the power of some of this weaponry is unthinkable. You don’t even want to know about it. Oh, you could end this thing in two seconds if you wanted to,” Trump added. He also said that oil prices have not jumped as high as he anticipated they would after the war began. The president’s comments come as prices have surged in recent weeks as Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital maritime passageway in the Middle East. “Everything was going great, the economy was great, oil prices were very low, gasoline was dropping too,” Trump told reporters. “And I saw what was happening in Iran and I said, ‘I hate to make this excursion, but we have to do it,’ and I actually thought the numbers would be worse.” “President Donald Trump urged Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to do more as he pressed allies for support over the war with Iran and rising oil prices, while defending the secrecy of the campaign by invoking Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor,” Reuters wrote. President Donald Trump urged Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to do more as he pressed allies for support over the war with Iran and rising oil prices, while defending the secrecy of the campaign by invoking Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor https://t.co/Ab1R5sX04c pic.twitter.com/7GNWMxAkDH — Reuters (@Reuters) March 19, 2026 The White House later shared a photo of Trump and Takaichi. President Donald J. Trump and Japanese Prime Minister @takaichi_sanae. pic.twitter.com/grhiffju8t — The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 19, 2026 CBS News has more: Japan and the U.S. have officially been allies since 1952, although the scars from World War II took longer to heal in many cases. In 2016, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a somber visit to the Pearl Harbor memorial site alongside then-President Barack Obama. Abe offered his “sincere and everlasting condolences” to the Americans who lost their lives in the surprise Japanese attack of Dec. 7, 1941, and in all of World War II. Abe said he was “rendered entirely speechless” by the deaths of so many U.S. service members. More than 2,400 Americans were killed in the Pearl Harbor attack. “On behalf of the Japanese people, I hereby wish to express once again my heartfelt gratitude to the United States and to the world for the tolerance extended to Japan,” Abe said at the time. “…Japan and the United States, which fought a fierce war that will go down in the annals of human history, have become allies with strong ties rarely found anywhere in history.” Mr. Trump also had strong ties with Abe, a friendship that hasn’t been matched with more recent prime ministers. Abe was assassinated during a speech in Japan in 2022.