The decision of Japan’s new prime minister to park a gold-tinted Ford F-150 pick-up truck on the driveway of Tokyo’s Akasaka Palace, just where the visiting US president would catch its all-American glint, was a diplomacy index for a new era.

Donald Trump’s weaponisation of tariffs has created a crisis among America’s closest friends of what might be called deliberative derangement — the preparedness to justify barking like a duck, if the US is quacking like a dog. 

Japan, which has a great deal to lose from a serious degradation of its relationship with the US, has now provided observers with a helpful symbol of the situation. The positioning of the gold F-150 was part of a bigger diplomatic dance with Trump that centred on negotiating down tariffs that could maul Japanese automakers and retaining the protection of the US security umbrella.