Photo/Illutration Hiromichi Tanigawa, chairman of the Fukuoka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, gives a speech in Fukuoka on Jan. 6. (Satoru Eguchi)

FUKUOKA—The chairman of the Fukuoka Chamber of Commerce and Industry tore into U.S. President Donald Trump, characterizing him as “far more ferocious than a bear” and describing his policies as irrational and reckless.

“As if to assert that might makes right, he is unleashing one policy after another across domestic affairs, trade and national security that can only be described as acts of sheer madness,” Hiromichi Tanigawa said at a New Year’s celebration here on Jan. 6.

Tanigawa, chairman of Nishi-Nippon Financial Holdings Inc., cited U.S. military attacks on Venezuela and the detention of its president, Nicolas Maduro, over the weekend, as well as the bombing of Iran last year, among other conduct.

In his speech, Tanigawa denounced Trump’s tariff policies, saying, “He has single-handedly destroyed the free trade system that the United States has led for 80 years since the end of World War II.”

Labeling Trump a “dictator,” he also said, “Even within the United States, he has suppressed scholarship and free speech based on personal motives and pushed forward with dismantling the separation of powers.”

The business leader also condemned Trump’s responses to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip.

“Astonishingly, this ferocious and capricious president has antagonized Europe and played right into the hands of Russia and Israel, effectively supporting invasion and slaughter from the sidelines,” he said.

Tanigawa then posed a rhetorical question to the audience: “What are we to make of this ferocious man, who seems nothing more than a bundle of self-display and self-congratulation?”

In his speech, Tanigawa also addressed China, which has been calling on citizens to refrain from traveling to Japan in protest to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on a Taiwan contingency.

“I would like to see China demonstrate the character and dignity befitting a major power,” he said.

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