Japan and the United States have agreed to set up a facility in Japan for the final assembly and checkout of the AIM-120 AMRAAM, the radar-guided air-to-air missile carried by the F-35 and other fighters, and to share the technical information needed to increase production of the SM-3 Block IIA ballistic-missile interceptor, Japan's Defense Ministry said after Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi met U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in Cebu, Philippines, on Wednesday, October 28. Koizumi called the AMRAAM deal "a groundbreaking agreement." Neither government has said where the plant will be, which company will run it, when it will open or how many missiles it will produce, and the Pentagon's own readout of the meeting does not mention either agreement. The deal follows Japan's April decision to scrap most limits on arms exports, which opponents say violates its pacifist constitution. Asked about the deal on Thursday, China's Foreign Ministry said U.S.-Japan security cooperation "should not come at the price of regional peace and stability, nor should such developments target or harm the interests of any third country."
What was agreed
The two ministers met for about 30 minutes on the sidelines of a meeting of Southeast Asian defense ministers and their partners. According to the Japanese summary, they "agreed to share the necessary technical information to enable increased production of the SM-3 Block IIA" and "agreed to establish an AMRAAM FACO in Japan," using the industry term for final assembly and checkout. Both steps fall under what Tokyo calls Operation Supercharge, a push to speed up defense-equipment cooperation with Washington. "We finally reached an agreement on the establishment of a final assembly and inspection facility in Japan for the AMRAAM air-to-air missile, which is essential for the F-35," Koizumi told reporters, according to a translation published by Air & Space Forces Magazine. The agreement "will not only ensure the acquisition of equipment needed by both Japan and the United States, but will also strengthen Japan's defense industry base," he said.
The Pentagon's readout says Hegseth "welcomed Japan's efforts to strengthen its defense industrial capacity, and both leaders committed to continue close coordination on critical munitions production," and stresses "increased defense investment" and an "effective denial defense in the First Island Chain." Koizumi said the U.S. side raised Japan's defense spending but that the two did not discuss a specific figure. RTX, which makes the AMRAAM through its Raytheon unit, referred questions to the Defense Department, and a Pentagon spokesperson did not respond to Breaking Defense.
A plan two years in the making
The AMRAAM agreement completes an effort that began in July 2024, when the two governments agreed to co-produce the missile and the Patriot PAC-3. In April 2026, Mitsubishi Electric said the Japanese share identified so far includes work related to circuit card assembly, "with the possibility of a future final assembly and check out (FACO) in Japan," after studying the idea under Defense Ministry contracts in 2024 and 2025. Air & Space Forces Magazine attributed the length of the process partly to Japan's limits on weapons exports and partly to the missile's classified guidance technology. U.S. and Japanese officials have said the agreement will help build regional stockpiles for the United States and its allies, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported, but how many of the plant's missiles would go to U.S. forces has not been stated.
The deal sits beside a much larger U.S. expansion. The Pentagon's AMRAAM contract with RTX, announced in late September and worth up to $20.7 billion over five years plus two option years, was formally published on October 23. A February framework agreement between the Pentagon and RTX set a goal of at least 1,900 missiles a year, and Breaking Defense reported that the Pentagon expects the new contract to nearly double production, provided Congress funds it. Japan is itself a buyer: in January 2025 the State Department approved the sale of up to 1,200 AMRAAMs to Japan for an estimated $3.64 billion. Breaking Defense notes the missile is in high demand because of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The SM-3 production target predates this week's meeting. It was set in March, when a White House fact sheet on President Trump's meeting with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the two sides "will rapidly increase by fourfold the production of Standard Missile 3 Block IIA missiles in Japan." The interceptor, mainly fired from warships, was developed jointly by the two countries. Koizumi did not say how much Wednesday's agreement would raise output.
The export debate
Japan has loosened its arms-export rules in stages. In December 2023 it allowed weapons made under foreign licenses to be sold back to the licensing country, such as the United States. On April 21, 2026, Takaichi's cabinet scrapped the rule limiting exports to five noncombat categories: rescue, transport, alert, surveillance and minesweeping. Weapons may now go to 17 partner countries with case-by-case approval from the National Security Council, but generally not to countries at war, though the rules allow exceptions in "special circumstances" for national security, and the Diet is told after approval rather than before. Defense Minister Koizumi told the Diet in March that one such case would be the United States, while in active combat, needing equipment licensed from a third country to keep up its forces in the Indo-Pacific. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said the change would "ensure safety for Japan and further contribute to the peace and stability in the region." Opponents say the change violates Japan's pacifist constitution, will increase global tensions and threatens the safety of Japanese people, the Associated Press reported, and China criticized it.
Akahata, the Japanese Communist Party's newspaper, wrote that the cabinet had lifted the ban on weapons exports entirely and thrown away Japan's identity as a "peace nation," and argued that the "special circumstances" exception showed the aim was to supply the United States, which it said faces a shortage of interceptor missiles after attacking Iran. Before the decision, three centrist and center-left parties, the Centrist Reform Alliance, the Constitutional Democratic Party and Komeito, asked the government to require advance notice to the Diet for deals above a set value, warning that "a hasty policy change" could cost Japan international trust, though the Centrist Reform Alliance's security chief said his party was not flatly opposed, Kyodo News reported. Profoundd searched the free online editions of English- and Japanese-language outlets through Friday, October 30, which do not include paywalled articles such as Akahata's full edition, and Akahata's free index pages for October 29 and 30, and found no party, editorial or civic-group reaction specific to the October 28 agreement. Reaction on social media was divided, the Japanese web outlet Sirabee reported on October 29: many posts on X said the plan was "like building a site that will be attacked" or asked, "If this isn't unconstitutional, what is?", while others said that being able to make the AMRAAM in Japan "is very important" or, noting that Japan has made air-to-air missiles before, that this had been around "for quite a while." (Translations from Japanese are Profoundd's.)
The meeting came as Japan watches China's navy closely. On Thursday, Koizumi told the gathering in Cebu that three Chinese destroyers and a coast guard ship had sailed together through the Osumi Strait south of Kyushu this week, a formation his ministry had not seen before.
This article reflects reporting through Friday, October 30, 2026. Sources: Japan Ministry of Defense, October 28; U.S. Department of War; Breaking Defense; Air & Space Forces Magazine; the Associated Press via WBHM, October 29; Janes, October 29; Nikkei and Yomiuri Shimbun, October 28; White House, March 19; Mitsubishi Electric, April 28; AP and Jiji Press, April 21; Defence Connect, January 2025; China's Foreign Ministry, October 29; the House of Representatives Budget Committee record, March 4; Akahata, April 22; Kyodo via Akita Sakigake Shimpo, April 13; Sirabee, October 29.
