Japan Caved to Trump on Trade Talks. Now the Real Haggling Begins.

TOKYO — When Shinzo Abe sat down for a three-hour dinner with President Trump at Trump Tower in New York in September, the pair celebrated the Japanese prime minister’s 64th birthday.

By the end of that week, it looked like Mr. Abe was the one who had given Mr. Trump a gift.

Japan acquiesced to direct, two-way trade talks with the United States, dropping its two-year insistence on trying instead to hammer out a pact that included multiple countries. It gave crucial momentum to Mr. Trump’s campaign to redraw trade pacts with longstanding allies like Japan, Canada, Mexico and the European Union, even as he widens a trade war with China.