May 19, 2026

Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Kira Yoshiko at a Diet meeting on May 18 demanded that the government withdraw its plan to deploy costly U.S.-made Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles to Japan.

The government in 2023 decided to purchase 400 U.S.-made Tomahawk missiles and budgeted 211.3 billion yen as the purchase cost.

At the meeting of the House of Councillors Audit Committee, Kira pointed out that this cost amounts to 528.2 million yen per missile, nearly double the 273.5 million yen calculated based on the U.S. budget. She criticized the government for blindly accepting the U.S. asking price. She noted that the government in its fiscal 2026 budget will spend 164.9 billion yen to support a free school lunch program in public elementary schools, and said that if the government canceled the purchase of the Tomahawk missile system, it would be able to divert the money to introduce a similar program in junior high schools as well.

Kira pointed out that the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency (ATLA) in its document stated that the “operation and maintenance” costs for the Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft system stand at 378.5 billion yen while mentioning nothing about the same costs for Tomahawk missiles. Asked about the reason for this, an ATLA official failed to give clear answers. Kira urged the government to cancel the planned deployment of Tomahawk missiles which are overpriced with high maintenance costs.