AsianFin -- U.S. President Donald Trump appears less patience for making a deal with Japan as he is warning the administration will impose higher tariffs on America’s ally.
Credit：Xinhua News Agency
Trump on Monday suggested the U.S. government will skip negotiations and directly inform Japan about its planned tariff rates due to the unfair trade of rice. “To show people how spoiled Countries have become with respect to the United States of America, and I have great respect for Japan, they won’t take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage,” Trump said in a post on his social media Truth Social, referring to the rice crisis leading to rice prices in Japan rose sharply in the second half of 2024 and accelerated further in the first half of this year.
“In other words, we’ll just be sending them a letter, and we love having them as a Trading Partner for many years to come,” Trump continued in the post.
Trump has hardened his threat to hike tariffs on some trading partners if negotiations fail to result in deals ahead of the July 9 deadline, when the 90-day pause on higher reciprocal tariffs are set to return. “At a certain point over the next week and a half or so, or maybe before, we’re going to send out a letter, we talked to many of the countries that we’re just going to tell them what they have to pay to do business in the United States,” Trump said Friday at a White House press conference.
Asked if the mid-July deadline was set in stone, Trump replied: “We can do whatever we want. We could extend it, we could make it shorter. I’d like to make it shorter. I’d like to just sent letters out to everybody, ‘Congratulations, you’re paying 25%.’”
In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday, Trump said he doesn’t think he will need to extend the deadline and his administration would notify countries that they have to face higher tariffs unless they strike deals with the U.S.
“We’ll look at how a country treats us — are they good, are they not so good — some countries we don’t care, we’ll just send a high number out,” said Trump. He said letters to notify countries about future trade penalties will start going out soon before the July 9 deadline. Letters would say, “Congratulations, we’re allowing you to shop in the United States of America, you’re going to pay a 25% tariff, or a 35% or a 50% or 10%,” said the president.
Trump in the interview singled Japan out, implying he would impose 25% auto tariffs for unfair auto trade. He said the administration’s letter to Japan would go like “Dear Mr. Japan, here’s the story. You’re going to pay a 25 percent tariff on your cars.” “They won’t take our cars, right? And yet we take millions and millions of their cars into the United States. It’s not fair,” Trump added.
Trump’s threats highlight the stalled trade talks between U.S. and Japan that increased risks of failure to reach a deal settled to meet the deadline.
The Japanese government scrapped a high-level meeting with the U.S. after the Trump administration abruptly asked its Asian ally to raise the defence budget to 3.5% of gross domestic product, or GDP, higher than its previous request of 3%, the Financial Times (FT) quoted people with knowledge of the matter on June 20. The meeting was canceled as such latest U.S. request reportedly annoyed Tokyo.
The abovementioned meeting refers to the so-called “2+2” annual security talks due on July 1. U.S. Secretary of State Macro Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth are supposed to meet Japan’s Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and Defence Minister Gen Nakatani in Washington.
Japan’s top trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa on June 20 made remarks, arousing speculations that Tokyo became more cautious on making a deal to ease trade disputes with the U.S.
Akazawa said that negotiations remained "in a fog" despite both sides seeking to make a deal. The Japanese Economic Revitalization Minister also said the government is not fixated on the July 9 deadline, which is when the Trump administration’s reciprocal tariffs return to higher levels from the baseline level 10%.
“To avoid any misunderstanding, I would like to confirm that I have not said at all that July 9 is the deadline for negotiations between Japan and the US,” Economic Revitalization Minister Ryosei Akazawa told reporters in Tokyo. “Japan and the US are in regular communication through various channels, and we will continue to consider what is most effective and engage in appropriate consultations.”
