{"id":45992,"date":"2026-06-23T16:38:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T16:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/45992\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T16:38:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T16:38:05","slug":"japan-asks-u-s-not-to-treat-it-unfavorably-under-new-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/45992\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan asks U.S. not to treat it unfavorably under new tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japan has sought assurances it will not be treated less favorably<\/a> under new U.S. tariffs as trade minister Ryosei Akazawa met with his U.S. counterpart on Friday.<\/p>\n

During a two-hour meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Akazawa called on the U.S. to abide by the terms outlined in last year\u2019s trade agreement, and exclude Japan from a potential five percentage point increase in tariffs under a different U.S. law.<\/p>\n

He also said Japan should not be asked to take any additional measures beyond those agreed to initially.<\/p>\n

Akazawa and the trade ministry declined to comment on how the U.S. responded.<\/p>\n

Akazawa departed for Washington on Thursday in his second trip this year and his first since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a significant portion of President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping tariffs last month. It was his 12th visit overall since tariff negotiations began last April. He returns to Tokyo on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The U.S. top court ruled on Feb. 20 that Trump\u2019s use of emergency powers to impose \u201creciprocal tariffs\u201d had exceeded his authority. The Trump administration quickly moved to impose 10% duties under a different law<\/a>, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to impose tariffs of up to 15% for a maximum of 150 days, unless extended by Congress.<\/p>\n

Trump has threatened to increase those tariffs to 15%. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that that could happen as soon as this week.<\/p>\n

Unlike Trump\u2019s reciprocal tariffs, which are capped at 15% for Japan under their trade agreement, the new rate would be charged on top of existing tariffs and could result in duties above 15% for items that have an existing tariff rate higher than 5%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen tariffs are adjusted, in some cases the burden will increase for certain specific items, while in other cases it may decrease. Taking such factors into account, we are coordinating while carefully considering various aspects,\u201d Akazawa said.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration is also eyeing additional tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which requires the U.S. Trade Representative to evaluate whether foreign trade practices are unfair or discriminatory. Akazawa said potential U.S. tariffs in the future under this statute should not result in less favorable treatment for Japan.<\/p>\n

At Friday\u2019s meeting, the two sides also discussed Japan\u2019s $550 billion investment package, with next-generation nuclear reactors reportedly on the short list for projects, which may be announced during Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi\u2019s visit to the White House on March 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the aim of making that visit as productive as possible, we are continuing to make every effort to advance the necessary coordination,\u201d Akazawa said when asked if the second round…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan has sought assurances it will not be treated less favorably under new U.S. tariffs as trade minister…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45993,"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-45992","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\/45992","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=45992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}