Japan\u2019s $550 billion capital commitment to the United States is stuck in committee as the two countries discuss the fine details of implementation and differences, possibly significant, stand in the way of the first deals reaching U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s desk for his consideration.<\/p>\n
\u201cSignificant gaps remain,\u201d trade minister Ryosei Akazawa said Thursday in Washington after speaking with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for 85 minutes.<\/p>\n
Akazawa reached a handshake agreement with Trump last July to get tariff rates lowered in exchange for Japan\u2019s pledge to make $550 billion available to the United States to support key industries and technologies.<\/p>\n
The current trip is Akazawa\u2019s 11th to Washington since tariff negotiations started last April, and the first since last September, when he and Lutnick signed the memorandum of understanding that outlines the agreement. He has also met with Lutnick on multiple occasions separately in Tokyo and spoke with him by phone about the $550 billion pledge.<\/p>\n
Since the memorandum of understanding was first signed, reports have repeatedly surfaced about possible deals, and expectations were particularly high in recent weeks that some sort of announcement is imminent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a little surprising that they didn\u2019t get it done this time, because that\u2019s what everyone was expecting,\u201d said William Chou, senior fellow and deputy director of Hudson Institute\u2019s Japan Chair.<\/p>\n
With parliament in session again from next Wednesday, there might not be enough time to hold the face-to-face negotiations needed to strike a deal before Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi\u2019s first U.S. visit in March, Chou said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a nonnegotiable,\u201d he said of getting the first project nailed down before Takaichi\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n
Takaichi plans to visit the White House on March 19 and meet with Trump ahead of the U.S. president\u2019s scheduled visit to China in April.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as there remain points that still require coordination, it cannot be said that an agreement has been reached,\u201d Akazawa said. \u201cIn short, it means that we do not yet have an agreement that can be implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the terms of a memorandum of understanding, projects are recommended by an investment committee chaired by Lutnick, before being sent to Trump. Japan provides input on the feasibility of candidate projects through a consultation process before the projects are presented to the president. All investments must be made before Trump\u2019s term in office ends.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut simply, when it comes to high-risk, high-return projects, from our standpoint \u2014 particularly given that taxpayer money may be involved \u2014 that is not the approach we are taking,\u201d he said. \u201cThe talks have been extremely tough, with national interests at stake, even more so than when we negotiated the tariff agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Akazawa\u2019s trip comes just weeks after files…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s $550 billion capital commitment to the United States is stuck in committee as the two countries discuss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[7045,13,191,189,188,190,1953,2749,1714,405,25],"class_list":["post-42094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-carmakers","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-economy-of-japan","tag-japans-economy","tag-japanese-economy","tag-ryosei-akazawa","tag-tariffs","tag-trade","tag-u-s-japan-relations","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}