Tokyo (AFP) – Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Friday that he had again pressed US President Donald Trump on tariffs, in a phone call ahead of fresh talks on easing the levies. Japan, a key US ally and its biggest investor, is subject to the same 10 percent baseline tariffs imposed on most nations plus steeper levies on cars, steel and aluminium. Trump also announced 24 percent “reciprocal” tariffs on Japan in early April, but later paused them along with similar measures on other countries until early July.
Ishiba said he spoke with Trump for 45 minutes on Friday morning — Thursday evening in Washington — and that a “broad range of topics were discussed, including tariffs and economic security.” “I conveyed to him Japan’s position on US tariffs,” Ishiba told a news conference in Tokyo, adding that there was “no change to our calls for the removal of tariffs.” “As I’ve said before, it’s not just about tariffs but about investment. There will also be no change to our position that Japan and the US will cooperate on generating employment in the US,” he said.
The comments came as Japan’s tariffs envoy, economic revitalisation minister Ryosei Akazawa, left for Washington for a third round of talks. “The series of tariff measures taken by the US are regrettable. We’ll strongly demand a review of these measures,” Akazawa told reporters at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. “But we have to reach an agreement, so it has to be win-win for both sides. We’ll listen carefully to the various proposals and ideas of the US side, and look for common ground between the two sides,” he said.
Public broadcaster NHK and other Japanese media reported, citing government sources, that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would not attend the talks this time. Akazawa would travel again to Washington on May 30, the reports said. Trump’s 25-percent auto tariffs are particularly painful for Tokyo, with roughly eight percent of all Japanese jobs tied to the sector. Early this month, the Trump administration also slapped a new 25 percent import tax on auto parts including engines and transmissions.
At the White House in February, Ishiba had promised Trump that yearly Japanese investment would increase to $1 trillion. “Although the recent US-China and US-UK trade deals indicate that Washington is aiming to de-escalate trade tensions, Japan-US negotiations have made little headway,” said Stefan Angrick at Moody’s Analytics. “Japan’s position as the world’s largest foreign investor in the US hasn’t shielded it from tariff threats, so promising more investment is an unconvincing bargaining chip,” he added.
© 2024 AFP
