Japan will invest $550 billion — equivalent, roughly, to a bazillion, gagillion yen — in unspecified projects in America, over an unspecified time period, using funds raised from unspecified sources.

That, in a nutshell, is the newly-inaugurated “Japan Investment America Initiative” and it’s the nucleus of Donald Trump’s trade “deal” with the Japanese.

The “fund,” as it were, will be comprised mostly of loans and loan guarantees, and the $550 billion figure is more cap than commitment. Or at least as fas as I can tell. Any profits from any projects (there are two anys in there) would be divvied up 90%/10% in favor of the US, a decidedly lopsided split which may disincentivize the Japanese.

Trump will have wide latitude to determine where money made available through the SPV goes, which is a recipe for what I’ll politely call “corruption lite.” I mean, think about what we’re doing here: Handing a real estate tycoon and wannabe mob boss the reins of a multi-hundred-billion dollar, opaque construction fund. The skim opportunities are boundless, as is the potential for Trump to award contracts to cronies.

Here’s a hypothetical. Japan will make available, say, $25 billion in open-ended funding for advanced computing, Trump will determine it should go towards a chip manufacturing campus in — wherever — Texas, and once the project’s done, Trump will rent the facilities to someone of his choosing, pocket nine out of every 10 lease dollars and send Japan a check for a dollar.

I’m, uh, not sure how excited anyone in Japan will be about that wonderful opportunity on offer, particularly given how far removed it is from the original idea, which would’ve capped Japanese investments at $400 billion, with profits from any ventures split 50/50.

True to form, Trump rubbed the asymmetrical terms in Japan’s face. In a farcically tactless PR stunt, Dan Scavino posted a Sharpiegate-style picture of Trump sitting before a piece of poster board with the 4 in $400 billion marked through and $500 billion scribbled over top of it.

The pageantry on display there is something to behold. All the people — the Japanese delegation, Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, Marco Rubio, everyone — are just stage props. Sure, there’s an actual conversation going on in the scene, but let’s face it: Trump had them all arranged around his desk like dolls — instead of the diplomats and cabinet officials they are — then had a photographer take pictures solely for the purpose of aggrandizing Trump and belittling everyone else, including and especially his own subordinates.

I’m not dwelling needlessly on the optics. Americans are wholly unaccustomed to the nuances of autocratic government, so it’s important to point them out. Authoritarian photoshoots are an art form all their own.

Returning to the unspecific specifics of the deal, whether and to what extent the investment fund gets any traction is mostly irrelevant. The whole point — Trump’s whole point — was to get a big number he can tout. “Half a trillion! More, actually. Whoever heard of such a thing? It’s gotta be the biggest deal ever, right Howard?” Etc.

Japan of course knows they’re under no real obligation to commit any amount of money to the initiative, let alone anything approaching the upper-limit. If there was a binding agreement inked on Tuesday evening, I didn’t see it. Shortly after the terms of the trade deal were announced, reports suggested Shigeru Ishiba might step down soon following a poor performance for LDP and its junior coalition partner in upper-house elections on Sunday. (Ishiba denied those reports.)

To be fair to Trump, the trade-related specifics of the deal are unfair to Japan at the margins. (Remember: When you’re Trump, it’s a win when you screw over your friends. So when you’re trying to be even-handed while discussing the specifics of his negotiations with foreign countries, giving him credit means admitting he succeeded in ripping off America’s allies.)

Although Japan secured tariff relief — Trump will hit Japanese imports with a 15% levy instead of the threatened 25% duty — Ryosei Akazawa, Tokyo’s trade envoy, agreed to a whole host of concessions, including dropping enhanced safety standards for US-built cars and trucks (which may be counterproductive if Japanese consumers buy fewer US vehicles knowing they don’t meet local requirements), committing to a big increase in rice purchases (but within a preexisting tariff regime), promising to buy 100 Boeing planes and upping an annual defense spending commitment to $17 billion from $14 billion. Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs weren’t included in the deal.

It’s unclear, frankly, whether this in fact moves any needles. It sounds like it could, and maybe it will. But which needles? When? Because if this is just another arrangement that results in US firms writing checks to Bessent to cover the tariffs, then it isn’t obvious what was accomplished other than aggravating Tokyo.

I have no idea what’ll become of the proposed $550 billion in Japanese investments in strategic sectors of the US economy and don’t delude yourself: Neither does anyone else. Right now, that initiative’s little more than “a concept of a plan,” to quote Trump’s (in)famous description of his healthcare reform strategy.

All we can say for sure on Wednesday is that Japan, after eight visits to The White House in four months, succeeded in placating the most irrational, irascible US president in modern history, thereby sparing Japanese automakers a worst-case tariff scenario. Not nothin’, I suppose.