50.1% of Japanese give high marks to Ishiba-Trump summit: poll

A Kyodo News survey showed Sunday that 50.1 percent of respondents gave high marks to the first in-person summit between Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington earlier this month.

The approval rating for Ishiba's cabinet rose to 39.6 percent from 35.7 percent in January, while 81.3 percent viewed the government's recent decision to release stockpiled rice to curb price hikes as "overdue," the weekend telephone poll found.

On Feb 7, Ishiba held talks with Trump for the first time since he returned to the White House on Jan. 20, with them pledging to enhance cooperation in areas such as defense, the economy and technology as they pursue a "new golden age" of bilateral relations.

Ishiba described his first face-to-face meeting with Trump as "very meaningful," calling him "very sincere" and a man "with a strong sense of mission." Trump also praised Ishiba as a future "great prime minister."

Japan avoided becoming the latest target of Trump's tariff threats, with Ishiba announcing plans to purchase U.S.-made liquefied natural gas and boost investment in the world's largest economy to $1 trillion.

Regarding food inflation at home, farm minister Taku Eto said Friday that the government will release up to 210,000 tons of stockpiled rice to ensure smooth distribution of the Japanese staple amid soaring prices due in part to higher demand.

In Japan, the nationwide consumer price index for rice skyrocketed 64.5 percent in December from a year earlier, the biggest climb since comparable data became available in 1971, the government said late last month.

Eto told reporters after a cabinet meeting that he hopes the first-ever release aimed at stabilizing supply will "bring the market back to normal." Some critics, however, argue that the government should have implemented the measure much earlier.

As for introducing a system to allow married couples to retain separate surnames, another major domestic issue, 58.1 percent said that expanding women's use of their maiden names would not fully address the challenges surrounding family name changes.

By political party, the support rate for Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party stood at 30.6 percent, while that for the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan was at 10.4 percent, with the Japan Innovation Party at 7.6 percent.

Backing for the Democratic Party for the People, an opposition group the ruling coalition is courting for its minority government, hit 10.8 percent, surpassing that of the CDPJ. Respondents with no affiliation to any particular party accounted for 18.5 percent.

The disapproval rating for Ishiba's Cabinet, launched in October 2024, fell to 41.8 percent from 49.2. The ruling bloc led by his LDP lost its majority in the powerful House of Representatives election on Oct. 27 following a high-profile political funding scandal.

In the general election, the CDPJ increased its seats to 148 from 98, while those of the ruling coalition dropped sharply to 215 from 288. The DPP quadrupled its seats but currently holds only 28 in the 465-member lower house.

The nationwide survey, conducted for two days through Sunday, called 515 randomly selected households with eligible voters and 4,414 mobile phone numbers.

It yielded responses from 428 household members and 635 mobile phone users. Some areas in Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan, struck by a powerful earthquake in January last year, were excluded.