Sanae Takaichi was formally reelected as Japan’s Prime Minister on Wednesday following her resounding electoral win, a formality that allows her to turn her attention to expediting budget deliberations and implementing a trade deal agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump.

The vote to affirm her as leader was virtually assured after her Liberal Democratic Party secured a two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament in the Feb. 8 election. In the tally Wednesday she took 354 votes of the 464 total cast, making her premiership all but inevitable given the outcome in the upper house can be overruled by the more powerful lower house.

Earlier Wednesday, Takaichi followed Trump’s lead in announcing the first batch of projects as part of Japan’s $550 billion investment commitment under a trade deal agreed with Trump last year.

“Both Japan and the U.S. will continue to work closely together to ensure the swift and smooth roll out of the projects,” she wrote in a social media post.

The projects, announced ahead of Takaichi’s expected visit to the U.S. in March, include a natural gas facility expected to generate 9.2 gigawatts of power, a deepwater crude export facility, and a synthetic industrial diamond manufacturing facility.

Takaichi’s historic victory in the lower house polls has given her a mandate to push through with a host of ambitious campaign pledges and policies, including increasing investment in areas such as the AI and semiconductor industries and beefing up defense capabilities. The premier has also vowed to accelerate talks on suspending a sales tax on food purchases for two years.

The International Monetary Fund, in a concluding statement released Wednesday after an Article IV consultation, warned Japan against cutting its sales tax when borrowing costs on public debt are set to double.

For now Takaichi’s pledges will likely be put on the back burner as she addresses the more pressing issue of passing the budget for the 2026 fiscal year that starts Apr. 1.

“Let’s aim to pass those bills as swiftly as possible,” Takaichi told lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party ahead of the parliamentary session, referring to the budget and tax reform bill.

The dissolution of parliament ahead of the snap election dimmed the prospects for the 2026 budget being passed by the usual March deadline, given budget deliberations usually take over two months. Still, Takaichi told members of the LDP that she has not given up on passing the budget by the end of March, according to local media.

If the main budget is not passed by March, Takaichi would likely have to get an interim budget passed in order to tie finances over in the meantime. An interim budget covers the basic costs for government operations, so a U.S.-style shutdown is highly unlikely. Still, it could inject some level of uncertainty as the government operates on a bare-bones spending plan.

The 2026 budget will total about ¥122.3 trillion ($799 billion), marking the largest initial budget on record. It represents an increase of roughly 6.3% from the ¥115.2 trillion initially allocated for the current fiscal year.

To help finance the spending, the government plans to raise around ¥29.6 trillion through new issuance of government bonds, Takaichi has said. The budget’s reliance on debt issuance is expected to fall to 24.2% of total outlays, down from 24.9% for the current year.

Takaichi has consolidated her political power with a sweeping mandate from the lower house election. In polls conducted after the election, Takaichi’s approval ratings remained high at over 65% in surveys conducted by public broadcaster NHK, as well as the Nikkei and Sankei newspapers. Her popularity hit 72% in a separate survey conducted by broadcaster FNN.

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—With assistance from Akemi Terukina.

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