The United States–Japan alliance is strong, but President Donald Trump has an opportunity to make it stronger than ever. Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is due to meet the president on Thursday and will reportedly lobby him for better trade terms and greater security assistance. Trump should give Japan what it needs.

Tokyo is Washington’s most important ally in the Indo-Pacific. The two nations’ alliance has been steadily built over eight decades, enduring in spite of occasional disagreements, especially on trade. Japan is the U.S.’s indispensable partner in the region, with an irreplaceable economic and technological prowess and decades of close cooperation. This was the case during the Cold War, and it remains so now.