TOKYO: Britain and Japan agreed to strengthen defence and economic ties, visiting Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Saturday, after his bid to forge closer links with China drew warnings from US President Donald Trump.

Starmer noted that Japan and Britain were the leading economies in a trans-Pacific that includes fellow G7 member Canada, as well as other international trade and defence pacts.

“We set out a clear priority to build an even deeper partnership in the years to come,” Starmer said as he stood beside Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi after a bilateral meeting in Tokyo.

Starmer, Takaichi pledge to build wider partnership

“That includes working together to strengthen our collective security, across the Euro-Atlantic and in the Indo-Pacific.” Takaichi said they agreed to hold a meeting of British and Japanese foreign and defence ministers this year.

She said she also wanted to discuss “cooperation towards realising a free and open Indo-Pacific, the Middle East situation and Ukraine situation” at a dinner with Starmer later on Saturday.

Takaich said the two leaders agreed during discussions on economic security that a strengthening of supply chains “including important minerals is urgently needed”.

There is concern that Beijing could choke off exports of the rare earths crucial for making everything from electric cars to missiles.

China, the world’s leading producer of such minerals, announced new export controls in October on rare earths and associated technologies.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2026