Editorial Board
Abe’s Trade War With South Korea Is Hopeless
Japan’s leader should never have introduced commercial weapons into a political dispute. Now he needs to compromise.
Worst of friends.
Photographer: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Getty ImagesVictory in Japan’s upper house elections over the weekend gives Prime Minister Shinzo Abe the political clout to do many things. The first should be to extricate Japan from the foolish trade war he’s launched against neighboring South Korea.
Abe’s government started the confrontation earlier this month when it restricted exports to South Korea of three materials critical to the manufacture of semiconductors and smartphone displays, thereby threatening to disrupt tightly linked supply chains and drive up the price of everything from memory chips to iPhones.