Japanese Parties Pressure PM Takaichi On Hormuz Energy Crisis

Takaichi has continued to focus on reassuring the public that the situation is under control, stating for example in the Diet Friday that the government is working on resolving bottlenecks in Japan's distribution of naptha – even as producers have warned that shortages could lead them to scale back production.

Meanwhile, at a meeting of the cabinet committee on the situation in the Middle East Friday, the prime minister said that the government had secured oil supplies for May from alternate sources totaling roughly 60% of Japan's May 2025 usage.

She instructed her government to aim to top this figure for June.

In the face of the Takaichi government's focus on managing supplies instead of taking demand-side measures, the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA) and its affiliated parties are calling for an early supplemental budget to address the crisis.