Donald Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi took a “surprise” turn when he made a crack about Pearl Harbor while defending US secrecy over its strikes on Iran.

As the US President sat alongside Takaichi at a press conference, a Japanese journalist asked him why he hadn’t informed the United States’ allies in Europe and Asia about his war plans.

“You don’t want to signal too much… we went in very hard and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” Trump replied.

“Who knows better about surprise than Japan?”

His comment was initially greeted with laughs from some of those in the room, and Takaichi appeared to smile slightly. But her expression turned stony as the President continued, invoking Japan’s December 7, 1941, attack on the US naval base in Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?,” he asked, still looking towards the reporter.

“You believe in surprise, I think, much more so than us. And, ah, we had to surprise them, and we did.”

The Pearl Harbor attack killed 2390 Americans and drew Washington into World War II.

Japan is now Washington’s closest ally in East Asia, and Trump greeted Takaichi with hugs when she arrived at the White House. He also heaped praise on her during the Oval Office meeting.

However, he also used the meeting to urge the Japanese Prime Minister to “step up” regarding the US-Israeli war with Iran.

The President has asked for more ships to clear mines and escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, largely closed by Iran in the conflict, despite saying the US doesn’t need any help.

“I expect Japan to step up because, you know, we have that kind of relationship and we step up for Japan,” Trump said.

“We don’t need much. We don’t need anything. I mean, honestly, we don’t need anything from Japan or from anyone else. But I ⁠think it’s appropriate that people step up.”

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Takaichi said she had briefed Trump on what support Japan could and could not provide in the strait under its laws. She did not elaborate publicly.

Trump’s pleas for help have received a lukewarm response from some allies caught off guard by his audacious campaign in Iran, now in its third week.

Takaichi said she came prepared to discuss specific strategies to calm global energy markets.

Ahead of the meeting on Thursday, US time, Japan joined leading nations in Europe in a joint statement, saying they would take steps to stabilise energy markets and were ready to join “appropriate efforts” to ensure safe passage through the strait.

But it was not clear that Takaichi was prepared to supply minesweeping vessels that could expose her pacifist nation to a bloody Middle East conflict.

Takaichi’s long-scheduled White House visit has been aimed at burnishing the decades-old security and economic partnership between Washington and Japan, but there have been concerns among Japanese officials that Trump would press her to do more than she can on Iran.

Reporting on the Oval Office meeting, Tokyo-based newspaper Japan Today said Trump’s “light-hearted remark” about Pearl Harbor was “sure to elicit unease in a country now a firm US ally”.

“Wartime history remains delicate for the Japanese, who have for decades cultivated a close alliance with the United States and hoped to move beyond memories of conflict,” it said.

Iran’s huge Pars gas field was targeted in the latest escalation of strikes.

Meanwhile, Israel has launched a fresh wave of attacks on Iran a day after Trump told it not to repeat its strikes on Iranian natural gas infrastructure, which sharply escalated the US-Israeli war on Iran.

The conflict has killed thousands of people, spread to neighbouring nations and hit the global economy since the US and Israel launched strikes on February 28, after talks about Tehran’s nuclear program failed to yield a deal.

“The IDF has just begun a wave of strikes against the infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime in the heart of Tehran,” a spokesperson for the Israeli Defence Forces said on Friday, without providing details.

Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates said they were dealing with missile attacks in the early hours of Friday, following days of Iranian strikes on regional energy infrastructure that have roiled global markets.

Energy prices jumped on Thursday after Iran responded to an Israeli attack on a major gas field by hitting Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, which processes around a fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas, causing damage that will take years to repair.

But oil prices fell on Friday as leading European nations and Japan offered to help secure safe passage ⁠for ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil supplies, and the US outlined moves to boost oil output.

–with Reuters