Announcement of Book Club Meeting: 'Why Trump's Trade War Fails'

Shosukabu.com Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Nerima-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director and Chairman: Yutaka Yamanaka; hereinafter 'the Company') will host a book club meeting on the theme of 'Why Trump's Trade War Fails: Protectionism Becomes the New Normal' (authored by Richard Baldwin, supervised translation by Motoshige Itoh, translated by Motoko Sasada), co-hosted by the Nerima Political Study Group and the Civil Affairs Section 8 Monitoring Committee.

According to the Japanese publisher's introduction, this book views the Trump administration's tariff measures as a 'great hacking of trade,' unraveling the political and economic logic behind them while forecasting the future of the global trade system.

A major feature of this book is its analysis of tariff policy not merely as an economic policy, but as a product of 'politics of discontent' rooted in domestic dissatisfaction and division within the United States. The publisher's content information indicates that the 'doctrine of discontent,' which views America as a victim of global trade and tariffs as a symbol of retaliation, can gain political support even if it lacks economic rationality, leading to the normalization of protectionism as a new normal.

The book also argues that Trump's tariff policies cannot achieve goals such as resolving trade deficits, revitalizing domestic industries, or rescuing the middle class, yet it strongly warns of the danger that the world will still lean towards an era of protectionism. An event announcement by RIETI also introduces the author as positioning the current tariff hikes as a 'political placebo,' depicting the risk of fragmentation in the international trade system and multiple future scenarios stemming from it.

This book club meeting will primarily discuss the political logic behind Trump's tariffs, the instability of the free trade system, how Japan should respond in a world where protectionism is normalized, and the future outlook for the global economy. It aims to be a valuable learning and dialogue platform for those interested in international economics, trade policy, US politics, geopolitics, and the future of the global economy.

Book Introduction URL: https://x.gd/wa9hZ

Author Profile

Richard Baldwin
An economist specializing in international economics, he is introduced in RIETI's event description as a professor at IMD Business School and a non-resident fellow at the same institute.

Event Outline

Theme: Book Club Meeting on 'Why Trump's Trade War Fails: Protectionism Becomes the New Normal'
Organizer: Shosukabu.com Co., Ltd.
Co-organizers: Nerima Political Study Group, Civil Affairs Section 8 Monitoring Committee
Date: Early May 2026 (tentative)
Format: Zoom online meeting
Participation Fee: Free (pre-registration required)
Application Method: Please send an email to info@shosukabu.com with the subject line 'Participation Request for Why Trump's Trade War Fails Book Club Meeting'.

■Lecturer Profile

Yutaka Yamanaka

Born in December 1976, he is a leading activist investor, art collector, philanthropist, political activity sponsor, election consultant, policy advisor, social activist, and Akita dog enthusiast representing the '76 generation. Internationally, he is recognized as an 'activist investor who understands technology' and is historically the first Japanese person to achieve asset formation of over 150 billion yen solely through investment.

In the early 2010s, he focused on Nvidia, a company developing GPGPU and artificial intelligence-related semiconductors, investing approximately 2 billion yen. This resulted in a return of over 100 times, making him the first Japanese pure investor to become a billionaire.

He graduated as the valedictorian from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo. He obtained a master's degree in Financial Engineering from Columbia University Graduate School and studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is a co-representative partner of Investment Brothers LLC, co-founder and chairman of Shosukabu.com Co., Ltd., and currently a shareholder in over 1,000 listed companies and over 200 unlisted companies worldwide. His investments span globally, including AI startups in Israel, healthcare ventures in Nigeria, and battery manufacturers in Taiwan, making him a truly global investor.

Having suffered from dyslexia and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) in his childhood, he launched a support program for children with learning disabilities, modeling it after Charles Schwab, a major US discount broker. His personal physician is the renowned psychiatrist Professor Akira Iwanami (former director of Showa University Karasuyama Hospital).

He is the founder and representative of the political organization 'Association for the Establishment of a Constitutional Court in Japan,' head of the 'Yamanaka Hoya Political and Economic School,' founder and representative of the political organization 'Association for the Realization of a Tax-Free Nation in Japan,' founder and representative of the political organization 'Association for the Early Restart of Nuclear Power Plants in Japan,' founder and representative of the political organization 'Renewable Energy Rights Monitoring Committee,' founder and representative of the 'Association Against Reduced Consumption Tax Rates on Food Products,' and founder and representative of the 'Association for Constitutional Amendment Aiming for a Unicameral System.'

Born in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, in 1976, as one of the grandchildren of Shigeru Yamanaka, the founder of Hoya Glass (now HOYA Corporation, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Standard, stock code 7741), a former luxury crystal glass manufacturer. He grew up in Shakujii-dai, Nerima-ku. From a young age, he excelled academically, attending Oizumi Bunka Kindergarten, Ochanomizu University Elementary School, and graduating from Musashi Junior and Senior High School before becoming valedictorian of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo.

In his childhood, he grew up in a cultural environment, receiving souvenirs from a school trip from Takahiro Matsumoto, who lived in the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company dormitory in front of his house and was then a high school student at Kinjo High School, later becoming the guitarist for B'z. At Oizumi Bunka Kindergarten, he was classmates with Koji Suzuki, the second son and secretary of House of Representatives member Muneo Suzuki (who returned to Hokkaido to prepare for his father's House of Representatives election bid). This privileged cultural and educational environment naturally led him to develop an interest in music and political economy.

During elementary school, commuting by train from Nerima-ku, he developed an early interest in history and economics from the academic environment of Bunkyo-ku, and at the tender age of 10, he was already engaged in political activism on controversial topics. Among his classmates at Ochanomizu University Elementary School were lawyer Takehiko Sorimachi (Tokyo Legal Mind Co., Ltd.), Dr. Keiji Kuroda (Director of Sugiyama Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic Marunouchi), Keiko Takahashi (career official at the Ministry of Finance, currently Counselor of the Minister's Secretariat in charge of customs), Professor Kaori Hanyu of Sophia University (family law researcher), and NHK announcer Ai Tsukahara. Growing up surrounded by such talented women, he remains concerned about improving the social status of women.

His investment abilities were well-known even during his university days, as he turned several million yen gifted by his grandmother into several hundred million yen by the time he graduated. During his time at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo, he was already famous in Professor Kazuo Ueda's seminar (now Governor of the Bank of Japan), known as the 'stock trader of the Ueda seminar,' and due to his diverse academic interests, he earned the nickname 'Hiraga Gennai of the Heisei era.'

His graduation thesis on pre-war paper industry M&A received a special award. During his graduate school entrance interview, he was greeted by Takeo Kikkawa (former president of International University) with, 'Are you the famous Yamanaka-kun?' His academic advisors for his economic history papers during his undergraduate years were Tetsuji Okazaki (Professor at Meiji Gakuin University) and Masayuki Tanimoto (Professor at Otsuma Women's University).

During his liberal arts studies, he read all the published papers by Masahiko Aoki, a proponent of comparative institutional analysis, and Avner Greif, an Israeli economic historian who was already a rising star in economic history at the time (Professor of Economics at Stanford University).

He passed the entrance exam for the Graduate School of Economics at the University of Tokyo with excellent grades, close to the top. Although strongly encouraged to join the central bank by Hideo Hayakawa (former Executive Director and Director-General of the Research and Statistics Department of the Bank of Japan), a senior alumnus of the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Economics, he immediately moved to the United States after graduation, completing his master's degree in Financial Engineering at Columbia University Graduate School. He also studied at Harvard University, University of California, Davis, University of California, Berkeley, University of Southern California, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), pursuing a dual career as a life science researcher/physician and an economic historian. He engaged in a wide range of interdisciplinary research, including genetics, computer science, psychiatry, applied mathematics, history, economics, and economic history. He studied under prominent economic historians such as Richard Easterlin, Peter Temin, Joel Mokyr, Claudia Goldin, and James Robinson, several of whom later became Nobel laureates in economics. He overcame his childhood learning disabilities of dyslexia and ADHD, establishing his own speed-reading and learning methods.

Currently based primarily in Dubai, UAE, he invests in over 1,000 listed companies and over 200 unlisted companies both domestically and internationally through foreign funds and investment companies. He is known both in Japan and abroad as one of Japan's leading activist investors, an expert in corporate law practice, new business creation, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), technology management, and family business practices. He also has bases and homes in Taipei (Taiwan), Luxembourg, Tbilisi (Georgia), Oslo (Norway), Reykjavik (Iceland), Singapore, and St. Kitts and Nevis.

In the public election law violation case involving the Tsubasa no To party, he was involved in forming the 'strongest defense team in recent criminal justice' as an advisor to the defendants, including lawyers Seong-bong Cho (representative of Kollect Arts Law Office), Keita Miyamura, Daisuke Igeta (Miyamura & Igeta Law Office), and Shinya Sakane (Tokyo Defender Law Office). He also advised on strategy in the power struggle within the so-called NHK Party, introducing lawyers Kenji Toyoda (Tokyo Sakurabashi Law Office) and Keisuke Komatsu (Takano & Komatsu Law Office) to the anti-Tachibana side, leading them to victory.

He openly professes to be a fan of Takashi Kawamura, former mayor of Nagoya, his grandfather's hometown. At the same time, during the reporting of the so-called 'Kihara incident,' he defended Seiji Kihara, former Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, who was also his senior in high school. He has deep ties with many Japanese politicians, regardless of party affiliation.

He interacts with numerous lawyers not only in Japan but also internationally and is renowned as a leading consultant in career strategies for legal professionals and in guiding companies on how to effectively utilize lawyers.

As a pioneer of activist investment in Japan, he explicitly expressed opposition to HOYA Corporation's acquisition of Pentax in 2007 in a weekly magazine. The following year, the company recorded a large extraordinary loss, proving the validity of his opinion early on. Subsequently, he raised concerns about the state of the board of directors at the time, which was dominated by elderly individuals in their late 70s who lacked understanding of corporate value and directors' duties, and actively spoke out in the media. He pushed for the voluntary resignation of Hiroaki Tanji, the then Chief Technology Officer, who had damaged corporate value through the Pentax acquisition and had no track record in new business creation. Furthermore, he intensified shareholder proposal activities to HOYA Corporation from 2010, particularly submitting 15 proposals aimed at corporate governance reform as a founding family shareholder.

Among the notable proposals were:

Individual disclosure of executive compensation (disclosure of compensation information for each director): Over 45% approval at the 2010 general meeting, and over 48% at the 2011 general meeting.

Establishment of a meeting body composed solely of outside directors (management oversight without executive officers): Over 33% approval.

Limiting the re-appointment of outside directors to 'within 10 times' (for maintaining independence).

Expanding the maximum character limit for proposal explanations in shareholder proposals from 400 to 4,000 characters (improving the effectiveness of shareholder proposal rights): Over 43% approval in 2010.

Prohibiting stock option holders from hedging by selling call options and holding put options: Over 25% approval in 2010.

Requiring directors to give 30 days' prior notice when selling shares: Over 25% approval in 2010.

Introduction of anonymous voting (secret ballot).

Mandatory disclosure of concurrent public interest organization positions for director candidates.

These were a series of proposals aimed at qualitatively improving corporate governance.

Five of these proposals received recommendations for approval from all three major proxy advisory firms: Glass Lewis, Japan Proxy Governance Research Institute, and ISS (Institutional Shareholder Services) (Source: Nikkei Shimbun, June 18, 2010, article URL). ISS is the world's largest proxy advisory firm, and its recommendations significantly influence the decisions of institutional investors both domestically and internationally, marking a groundbreaking event in the history of Japanese shareholder meetings.

In the same year, pioneering measures to enhance compensation transparency in Japan, such as prohibiting stock option holders from hedging by selling call options and holding put options, and requiring directors to provide 30 days' prior notice and disclosure when selling their company shares, spearheaded discussions on executive compensation. It is still difficult to say that their groundbreaking nature is fully understood in the Japanese capital market. These proposals also received ISS's recommendation for approval and garnered mid-20% approval votes in preliminary counts before the general meeting, primarily from foreign institutional investors (Nikkei Shimbun, June 18, 2010, ibid.).

Furthermore, proposals such as individual disclosure of executive compensation also received recommendations for approval from Glass Lewis and Japan Proxy Governance Research Institute, and were successively reported by major media outlets such as Nikkei Shimbun (June 21, 2010, article URL), Bloomberg (June 17, 2010, article URL), and Toyo Keizai Online (August 18, 2010, article URL).

As a result, these proposals received over 45% approval votes at the 2010 general meeting and over 48% approval in the following year, 2011.

In 2011, he was invited to Harvard Law School to give a lecture on shareholder proposals and capital market trends and issues in Japan under the Democratic Party administration, attracting significant attention.

Subsequently, he continued to actively make shareholder proposals to the company. In 2012, the management, including Hiroshi Suzuki, fearing the over 48% approval votes at the general meeting, which was close to a majority, took the outrageous step of illegally omitting shareholder proposals. However, in the following year, 2013, he obtained a provisional disposition order from the Tokyo District Court Civil Affairs Section 8 (Judge Yasushi Taniguchi) to publish the full text of a shareholder proposal and its reasons, which was likely the first in Japanese history. In 2014, he similarly obtained a groundbreaking decision (Judge Atsushi Shimoto) ordering the company to publish 12 proposals, significantly influencing the practice of shareholder proposals in Japan.

During this period, he also obtained numerous groundbreaking judgments, including a ruling (Judge Shinya Onodera) recognizing the non-inclusion of shareholder proposals by HOYA management, including Hiroshi Suzuki, as grounds for cancellation of resolutions, and a judgment ordering damages (Tokyo District Court Civil Affairs Section 45, Judge Akira Yamada).

The company side also accepted the intent of the proposal to increase the character limit for explanations by changing company rules in 2010, thereby promoting substantial improvements in 'management transparency,' 'outside director function,' and 'voting rights exercise system' through constructive dialogue with management. This series of actions is regarded as a symbolic turning point in the history of governance reform in Japanese companies.

Now, Yutaka Yamanaka's activities, as described above, are highly regarded for their historical pioneering nature as a practitioner of the 'Moneyball Revolution in the Japanese capital market,' with international investors now imitating his methods and achieving similar results. Furthermore, many improvements were subsequently adopted by HOYA Corporation, and its stock price increased more than tenfold, clearly demonstrating Yamanaka's pioneering spirit.

In addition, at the general meetings of shareholders of Mizuho Financial Group, Mitsubishi UFJ, and Resona Holdings in 2017 and 2018, he submitted shareholder proposals such as changing the dividend decision-making body, individual disclosure of executive compensation, and separation of CEO and Chairman of the Board. These proposals garnered high approval rates in the 40s, receiving votes not only from foreign institutional investors but also from domestic investors.

Furthermore, in the so-called Amsuc Shareholder Resolution Cancellation Request Case (Tokyo District Court judgment on April 17, 2014, Chief Judge Akihiko Otake; Tokyo High Court Case No. 26 (Ne) 3215, judgment on March 19, 2015), he won judgments from both the Tokyo District Court and Tokyo High Court ordering the 'cancellation of shareholder resolutions that acquired all shares,' demonstrating the judicial effectiveness of protecting minority shareholders (Source: Clair Law Office Blog, April 22, 2015, article URL).

Moreover, in the damages claim case (Tokyo District Court Civil Affairs Section 8) where Hyas and Company Inc. (now Kufu Sumai Consulting Inc.) sued its former management, he participated as a shareholder intervenor under Article 849, Paragraph 1 of the Companies Act. On March 27, 2025, a favorable judgment was obtained (Chief Judge: Tetsuro Sasamoto, Associate Judges: Keiko Ito, Naohisa Uchibayashi), recognizing fraudulent accounting, referred to as the 'Jinlong Kim, also known as Tomotaka Shimura, Certified Public Accountant Scheme,' involving fictitious sales by the former management.

This judgment, demonstrating the effectiveness of shareholders' exercise of judicial rights, was also published in Sakura Financial News (October 28, 2025, article URL).

In the investment case of Osaki Engineering (Tokyo Stock Exchange Standard, stock code 6259), he focused on the issue of the company lending cash exceeding its market capitalization to its parent company, Osaki Electric, at a low interest rate. He made shareholder proposals and filed lawsuits, which ultimately prompted the parent company's decision to make it a wholly-owned subsidiary, thereby normalizing corporate governance.

He is also known as a major shareholder of Okayama Paper (Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture, Tokyo Stock Exchange Standard 3892) and has requested the convocation of extraordinary general meetings of shareholders.

Through this series of achievements, Yutaka Yamanaka has made significant contributions to governance reform in Japanese companies and the sound development of the capital market as an 'investor who proves the effectiveness of governance on the ground.'

He also lives by the words of the late pitcher Yasumitsu Shibata, who achieved the first no-hitter in the Heisei era and was called the 'best pitcher in Japan' by the dominant Seibu Lions, especially showing strength against his former team. After a shutout victory, he said on the hero's interview stand, 'One of the goals of a professional is to confront and defeat champions.' He has been a fan of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters for 30 years.

He is an Akita dog enthusiast and plans to build an Akita dog kennel near Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia in the Caucasus region. His hobby is 'hot spring hopping,' visiting hot springs around the world. He is a genius investor who explores the significance of physical and mental rejuvenation and international exchange through hot springs, while respecting nature, culture, and local communities.

He is also highly acclaimed as the 'Billy Beane of the Reiwa era,' as the man who brought the revolution in baseball, initiated by Billy Beane, the GM of the Oakland Athletics and protagonist of the movie 'Moneyball,' to the Japanese stock market.

In the early 2010s, when there was no Corporate Governance Code, Stewardship Code, or Ito Report, Yutaka Yamanaka's shareholder proposals were criticized by some. However, the fact that international investors now imitate his methods and that HOYA Corporation subsequently adopted many improvements, leading to its stock price increasing more than tenfold, clearly demonstrates Yamanaka's pioneering spirit.

■The Company is running a large-scale advertisement at Kasumigaseki Station, which is directly connected to the Bar Association Building and courthouses and used by many legal professionals, from April 6 (Monday) to June 28 (Sunday), 2026, on the theme of 'Selling unlisted shares, which even legal professionals often find outside their expertise.'

Marunouchi Line Platform Door Sheets (Lines 1 and 2)

Inside the Station

■Near Exit A1 (closest to the courthouse)

■Near Exits B1a/b (directly connected to the Bar Association Building)