Taft–Katsura Agreement

The Taft–Katsura Agreement (Japanese: 桂・タフト協定, Hepburn: Katsura-Tafuto Kyōtei^?, also known as the Taft Katsura Memorandum) was a 1905 discussion (not an agreement) between senior leaders of Japan and the United States regarding the positions of the two nations in greater East Asian affairs, especially regarding the status of Korea and Philippines in the aftermath of Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War. It was not an "agreement" and did not set out any new policies, but a memorandum. The memorandum was not classified as a secret but no scholar noticed it in the archives until 1924.

The discussions were between United States Secretary of War William Howard Taft and Prime Minister of Japan (Count) Katsura Tarō on 27 July 1905. The Japanese leader stated Japan's reasons for its making a protectorate of Korea. He repeated that Japan had no interest in the Philippines. The US had acquired the Philippines following its victory over Spain in the Spanish–American War of 1898. In 1924, Tyler Dennett was the first scholar to see the document; he described it as containing "the text of perhaps the most remarkable 'executive agreement' in the history of the foreign relations of the United States". The consensus of historians is that Dennett greatly exaggerated the importance of a routine discussion that changed nothing and set no new policies. Historians pointed out there was no formal agreement on anything new. The word "agreement" in the documents merely means the two sides agreed that the English and Japanese versions of the meeting notes both accurately covered the substance of the conversations. President Theodore Roosevelt later agreed that War Secretary Taft had correctly stated the American position.

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