Japan goes wild for Ivanka ‘fantasy’

He is not a man who likes being upstaged. Yet Donald Trump has been eclipsed in Japan on the eve of his first official trip to Asia — by his daughter Ivanka.

Japan was in the grip of Ivanka fever on Friday as she made a fleeting but high-profile visit to Tokyo. In a perhaps beneficial warm-up for the US president — whose popularity recently hit a low of 24% among Japanese — Ivanka flew into Tokyo just days before her father was due to arrive today for the launch of his high-stakes Asia tour.

Her arrival triggered something of a media frenzy. “Career professionals might find something validating in her dreamy lifestyle,” said Professor Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo.

“But for most working women in Japan in dead-end jobs with low pay, she represents the Disney Channel, an unattainable treacle fantasy.”