RUTHFULLY YOURS

Many hope that such personalized, improvisational and unilateral diplomacy will fade from world politics when Mr. Trump returns to private life. But two developments in Japan suggest the Trumpification of world politics may be here to stay.

First, a small fleet of whalers set out on the first commercial hunt in Japan in 31 years, as Japan’s departure from the International Whaling Commission became effective. The IWC may not be one of the world’s most important multilateral institutions, but its troubles typify the crisis increasingly gripping its peers.

The IWC was established in 1946 to monitor whale stocks and limit commercial whaling in the interest of promoting a sustainable commercial whaling industry. As opposition to whaling grew, the IWC began discussing a moratorium on the killing of whales. Countries with no serious economic stake in whaling—including landlocked states like Mongolia, Switzerland and Hungary—joined the IWC. Some opposed whaling; others were recruited by pro-whaling countries to cast votes against the ban. In the end, the antiwhaling countries won. Despite scientific evidence that some whale species can be sustainably hunted, the IWC now bans all commercial whaling.

Whaling is not a major Japanese economic interest. The country consumes only about 5,000 tons of whale meat a year, down from more than 200,000 in the 1960s. But for Japanese nationalists and cultural traditionalists, the IWC has become a symbol of Western cultural imperialism, and standing against it is a way to assert national pride.

My own preference would be to allow the world’s surviving leviathans to swim unmolested through the sparkling seas, but Japan has a point. A combination of ethical mission creep and poor governance has so eroded the moral authority of the IWC that pro-whaling nations such as Canada and Norway have opted out of the moratorium or the commission itself.

The second event that points toward a shift in world politics involves trade. Japan has unilaterally imposed export controls to South Korea of critical materials used for flexible smartphone screens and chip manufacturing. The ban was not in retaliation for Korean protectionism, but a move in a long-running and bitter political dispute.

In the view of the Japanese government, South Korea has violated agreements between the two countries to settle demands for compensation to the “comfort women,” Korean women forced into Japanese military brothels during World War II. Exports of these sensitive materials now require advance permits, and there is no guarantee that they will be issued in a timely fashion or at all.

Japan is a major trading nation that lacks America’s unique leverage in the international system, so its decision to mix politics with trade marks a dramatic shift in national strategy. The clear presumption is that Japan expects a continued weakening in the rules-based international system, and it is looking to maximize its advantages in what can only be called a Trumpian way.

Between China’s routine cheating, the Trump administration’s shift toward bilateral negotiations, and now Japan’s embrace of politicized trade strategies, the world’s three largest national economies are operating in what looks more and more like a post-World Trade Organization framework. Others will surely take note.

For the U.S., which needs good relations between Tokyo and Seoul as it seeks to cope with China and North Korea, Japan’s new trade approach highlights the significant costs of a more aggressive and unilateral trade strategy. The already bitter dispute over compensation for comfort women will grow more inflamed and harder to manage if it harms economic relations between the two countries.

The old rule-based trading system was about alliance management as well as about institutionalizing commitments to free trade; diplomats and business leaders alike will have to work harder in a more chaotic world.

Since regaining sovereignty after World War II, Japan has been among the most reliable supporters of the rules-based multilateral world system. Tokyo’s willingness to walk away from the constraints of the old system suggests that, from Japan’s viewpoint, the Age of Trump marks a transition, not an interlude.