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Japan’s top trade negotiator has travelled to Washington for talks over Donald Trump’s tariffs, in one of the first tests of the White House’s willingness to strike deals on the levies with US trading partners.
Tokyo is the first capital to be granted face-to-face talks with the Trump administration after the US president announced onerous “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of nations earlier this month, before suspending them for 90 days.
On Wednesday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he would personally attend the meeting, alongside Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick.
“Japan is coming in today to negotiate Tariffs, the cost of military support, and ‘TRADE FAIRNESS’,” he wrote, adding: “Hopefully something can be worked out which is good (GREAT!) for Japan and the USA!”
Diplomats said Japan’s status as a “guinea pig” in the talks might give it an advantage over other countries, though uncertainty remained over what the Trump administration hopes to achieve. Japan’s trade surplus with the US is among the 10 biggest in the world.
“All the uncertainty of the last weeks, the weaponisation of tariffs and the language of trade war — in all of this we haven’t properly seen what it is that Trump wants this to lead to,” said a person close to preparations for the talks.
“Japan may not enjoy this position, but its big contribution may be to be in the front line when that is clarified,” they added.
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The two-day visit by Ryosei Akazawa comes after Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba declared a “national crisis” over the potential hit to trade from Trump’s tariffs.
The US president’s imposition of a 24 per cent “reciprocal” duty on Tokyo has rankled because of Japan’s status as a staunch military ally and the largest foreign investor in the US for the past five years.
Despite Trump’s subsequent pause, Japan still faces a 25 per cent tariff on car exports to the US, as well as the baseline 10 per cent levy imposed on most of America’s trading partners.
Takeshi Niinami, chair of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, said the choice of Bessent as the lead US negotiator signalled that Washington would probably push Japan to address weakness in the yen. The US also wants to stabilise the US Treasuries market, in which the Japanese state holds about $1.1tn as foreign currency reserves.
People familiar with the situation said the US had signalled several priorities for the talks, including discussing ways for Japan to import more of its liquefied natural gas.
They said Washington also wanted to boost Japanese market access to US produce such as rice and wheat, and address safety standards for cars that the US believes make it difficult to sell in Japan.
The US Treasury did not respond to a question about the Trump team’s priorities for the talks.
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Officials in Tokyo said Japan was prepared to discuss a range of issues, including buying more weapons from the US, infrastructure investment in the country, and collaboration on shipbuilding.
In 2019, Japan’s then-prime minister Shinzo Abe — who became known as the “Trump whisperer” for his close rapport with the president — sealed a trade deal with the US.
Abe only managed to secure the easing of some restrictions on some US agricultural products and strike an agreement on digital commerce. However, Trump described the deal as “phenomenal”, and the Japanese leader was able to present it domestically as evidence of close ties between the countries.
“We have many cards this time but last time [during the previous Trump administration] was totally different in terms of the scene of negotiations,” said Niinami.
Several experts said Japan would put the US car tariffs high on its priority list. “Japan will likely focus on trying to get the auto tariffs paused,” said Matt Goodman, a US-Japan economic relations expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “But the auto tariffs will probably be the hardest thing to get Trump to back down on.”
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Tobias Harris, founder of political risk advisory Japan Foresight, said the lack of clarity about the US side’s goals for the talks put Japan and Ishiba in a difficult position compared with the situation under Abe.
“I don’t think there is quick stuff out there. If the US want real concessions on agriculture that is not something that can be settled quickly in the best of times, and this does not feel like the best of times,” said Harris.
“And I don’t get the sense there is a desire in Tokyo to just roll over and do a bad deal for Japan,” he added. “It’s a really tough line for Ishiba to walk. If they do what the US wants there will be a price domestically.”
Jeff Kingston, a US foreign policy expert at Temple University in Japan, said the stakes in the talks were further raised by anxiety in Japan over the US commitment to regional stability in Asia, where it is the primary security player.
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Recent actions of the Trump administration, said Kingston and other analysts, have particularly unsettled Japan, which depends on the US for its defence.
In particular, Trump’s stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised concerns that the US could be more reluctant to engage militarily in a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan.
At the same time, the Japanese economy’s reliance on exports makes it highly vulnerable to global recessions and any fraying of the international rules-based order.
“The Japanese have to talk tough for domestic consumption, but when it really comes down to it they will do whatever needs to be done to keep Trump on side,” said Kingston. “The difficulty is that Trump uses uncertainty as a weapon in negotiation, and Japan is not in a position to gamble.”
