The Familiar Template: Japan, Trump, and the Global Rise of “Foreigner Fatigue''

In Japan, over-tourism and rising immigration have become constant fuel for media outrage —and politicians might have noticed. Interestingly, many residents insist their feelings about these problems are genuine, justified frustration, and not prejudice. This is due to many reasons that I shall discuss further on in this article, but Asahi Shimbun provided a nice “sum-up” of how these feelings became prevalent:

“An absence of diverse interactions, falling prey to online misinformation, and personal trials are all part of a twisted melting pot that is feeding into the growing misgivings some Japanese harbor toward foreign nationals.” (The Asahi Shimbun 2026).

How come?

As tourist numbers increase, more reports of vandalism (Hibino 2025) and neighborhood disruption (Associated Press 2026) follow, affecting not just locals who deal with it firsthand, but Japanese residents who read about such incidents online and feel entitled to weigh in. This phenomenon has been termed ‘’foreigner fatigue”. It is created by real controversies among media outlets, and also by political figures finding it useful to amplify. The number of foreign residents hit a record high of nearly 3.95 million in 2025 (Aichholzer 2025), being just above 3% of Japan's total population.

It’s rather unreasonable for the political energy around that relatively small figure to be so heightened. In reality, any type of hateful rhetoric never comes from a place of rationality.

In the case of Japan, there is no difference, but people are rather fixated on reports of incidents and the rising numbers, and ignore how they have been manipulated into believing that Japan’s “issues” are rooted in tourists and foreigners. One of the main culprits in this affair is the nationalist party Sanseito, which has been running its campaigns on a platform of anti-globalism, anti-immigration, and anti-liberalism. Sanseito's leader claimed, with no supporting evidence, that "foreigners who can't find a job turn to stealing, and it's causing a big problem."

Police data says the opposite —foreign crime charges peaked between 2001 and 2005 at around 94,000 over five years; the most recent comparable period saw that figure drop to under 57,000 (Ofner 2026). Even with facts in the picture, misinformation spreads like wildfire, and people, seeing how they’re prioritized, are fast to be misled, thus failing to realize that such priority is just a cover for a hateful, “eugenic-ish” campaign.

Ornate Japanese parliament chamber with red carpet and seating. Photo by Hongwei FAN on Unsplash

What's driving it?

According to Cogan (2025), one of the main elements that drives this hatred is economics. Blaming foreigners is cheaper than fixing structural problems like stagnant wages and underemployment. Another element is social media. 

Misinformation has been rampaging Japan’s social media scene. Anti-foreigner content has been traced to paid creators, including a job posting seeking writers for "China-critical" videos (Chai, 2025).

And partly over-tourism too: the weak Yen has made Japan extremely affordable, tourists have become more visible and “obstructing”, making it too obvious not to create an issue out of.

This discussion seems like a tale as old as time, since Japan has always had a complicated relationship with outsiders since the 1800s. However, it seems especially significant in these critical times when these sentiments are getting more legitimacy by outer influences, specifically from the political scene in the US.

One remark that resonates with this speculation of mine is from Masako Kan in the South China Morning Post, an international cultural consultant who specialises in bridging US and Japanese businesses:

“Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January provided a powerful ‘psychological pass’ for Japan’s conservative base. His rhetoric –asserting that prioritising one’s own national interest and borders is a virtue– created fertile ground for Japanese politicians and voters to voice their raw sentiments, further heating the national conversation.” (Kan; Ryall 2026).

Does that mean Trump's immigration posture is directly shaping Japanese policy?

Probably not in any direct, causal way. The “friendly” relationship between Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and President Donald Trump indicates shared conservative views. Takaichi was strict in showcasing her right-wing ideals by immediate re-evaluation of foreign residents-related policies in Japan (Mainichi Daily News 2026).

This is to say that her conservatism predates her interaction with Donald Trump, and Japan's anti-foreigner sentiment has domestic roots that have nothing to do with what's happening in the US. But there's something worth noticing here: the global normalization of "foreigners as problem" rhetoric makes it easier for politicians everywhere to deploy it without consequence. When the leader of the world's most powerful country spends years associating immigration with crime and cultural threat, that framing doesn't stay contained within US borders. It becomes a template.

People walking along road leading to a pagoda. Photo by Kevin Anggrek on Unsplash

Why such a pattern in wealthy countries?

Coming from Vietnam, a country that has great tourism policies and friendly locals who inspire tourists with a strong desire to return or even immigrate, I came to ponder the difference in immigration attitudes across nations. It's worth asking why xenophobia tends to emerge most visibly in rich, stable nations. Japan, the US, and many others, such as Australia’s “March for Australia” (ABC News, 2026), are all grappling with versions of the same dynamic. Apparently, several researches have pointed out that xenophobia tends to run deepest in wealthy, developed nations — the US, UK, Germany, the Nordics — and has done so consistently enough that it's basically treated as a given in the literature (Crush & Ramachandran, 2010; Lowman et al., 2023). Rich countries, it turns out, are very good at finding reasons to resent the people they let in.

Meanwhile, the bulk of the world's migration flows actually happen across Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia —yet these movements rarely crystallize into the kind of nationwide electoral controversy seen in wealthier nations (GIGA Focus Global 2018; Haas et al. 2019).

The difference isn't the volume of migration. It's the one who has the institutional infrastructure to turn anxiety into a party platform.

I would speculate that when public services are well-funded and legally accessible, debates about who deserves them become pressingly demanded. Japan fits this pattern more naturally than people might assume. Despite its geographical and cultural distance from the West, it shares the same underlying conditions —a shrinking native population, a generous (though rigid) public welfare system, and a historically homogenous society now confronting visible demographic change.  For such, even a 3% foreign population feels significant in ways it wouldn't elsewhere.

The significant decline in the number of Japanese nationals (NHK WORLD, 2025) is also a factor that makes only 3% seem extremely threatening, thus making residents more prone to developing such hateful sentiments.

What now?

The pattern is there, and it’s rather difficult to fully get rid of them for the times to come. None of these makes the xenophobia more justified. It just explains why it takes the form it does. Coming back to the case of Japan and the US in recent times, there can be two ways to interpret the scenery. The optimistic take is that both countries, regardless of how conservative their ideologies might be, are reacting to their own local pressures genuinely, independently, but coincidentally arriving at the same place. 

The less optimistic one is that we're watching the same political scheme travel well across borders, normalizing hatred as a facade for concern, and slowly making it feel reasonable to decide that belonging is a matter of blood and everyone else will always be the others.

Naturally, in both countries, not everyone is being swayed by this political rhetoric, but if this template keeps being repeated, fighting against it is bound to become extremely challenging.

Either way, it is happening, and it is important to understand that any political ideology that promotes the good of the people by creating a common enemy, instead of addressing direct issues towards quality of life, is not interested in your well-being but rather is interested in your anger. These are very different things, and the confusion between them is exactly what it's counting on. Our job is to recognize that and not allow this rhetoric to fuel online debates and create stratification any longer.

References

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed herein belong solely to the columnist and do not represent the official position of our think-tank. Humanotions cannot be held liable for any consequences arising from this content. Content published on Humanotions may contain links to third-party sources. Humanotions is not responsible for the content of these external links. Please refer to our Legal Notices & Policies page for legal details and our Guidelines For Republishing page for republication terms.