‘Real reasons to be worried’: are US tariffs finally coming for Japan?

Japan is scrambling to arrange another round of talks with the United States after Trade Minister Yoji Muto emerged from discussions in Washington on Monday without a promise that Japanese companies would be exempt from the swingeing tariffs on imports announced by President Donald Trump.

Takeshi Iwaya, the foreign minister, is attempting to set up a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Canada this week, on the sidelines of a three-day Group of Seven foreign ministers meeting in Quebec that began on Wednesday.

Analysts in Tokyo are divided on whether Japan’s efforts will eventually bear fruit, with some pointing out that Trump has a habit of making sweeping demands only to give ground down the line, while others suggest Tokyo has few options other than to brace itself for a worst-case scenario on exports to the US.

“I would say that Japan has real reasons to be worried,” said James Brown, a professor of international relations at the Tokyo campus of Temple University.

“Initially, everything seemed to be going according to plan for Japan. Prime Minister [Shigeru] Ishiba went to Washington in February to meet Trump and it went better than anyone expected, and then Trump turned his focus on Canada, Mexico and China,” he told This Week in Asia.

“Tokyo could have thought that it had got away with it, but I do not think anyone really believed that it would last.”