By Leika Kihara
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Monday Tokyo has no plan to terminate a trade deal struck with the U.S. in 2019, but will keep voicing “grave concern” over inconsistency between the deal and President Donald Trump’s latest automobile tariffs.
During Trump’s first term as president, the U.S. and Japan signed a bilateral trade deal in 2019 that cut tariffs on U.S. farm goods, Japanese machine tools and other products while staving off the threat of higher U.S. car duties.
Although the agreement did not cover automobile trade, then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he had received assurances from Trump that the U.S. would not impose “Section 232” national security tariffs on Japanese car imports.
“Between President Trump and I, myself, this has been firmly confirmed that no further, additional tariffs will imposed,” Abe had told a news conference after signing the deal.
Japan, however, was not exempted from Trump’s latest 25% tariff slapped on all automobile imports in the United States.
“Japan has grave concern over the consistency” with regards to the latest U.S. automobile tariffs and the 2019 bilateral trade deal, Ishiba told parliament.
“We will continue to convey our stance (to the U.S.) from this standpoint,” Ishiba said, although he said Japan has no plan to terminate the 2019 agreement altogether.
Japan’s top trade negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, visited Washington last week to kick off bilateral trade talks with the U.S., which will likely include discussions on non-tariff barriers and the thorny topic of exchange rates.
Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato plans to visit Washington later this week, where he is expected to meet U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for discussions on currency rates.
The dollar hit a seven-month low of 140.615 yen on Monday on simmering market speculation that Japan could face U.S. pressure to prop up the yen, and help Washington reduce the huge U.S. trade deficit.
Trump has hit Japan with 24% tariffs on its exports to the U.S. although, like most of his levies, they have been paused until early July. A 10% universal rate remains in place, as does a 25% duty on cars, a mainstay of Japan’s export-heavy economy.
(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)