Japan¡¯s chief trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa said the country can¡¯t accept the U.S.¡¯ 25% tariffs on cars, adding that the Asian nation¡¯s automakers produce far more cars in the U.S. than they export to America.
Japanese automakers make roughly 3.3 million cars in the U.S. a year, a number that¡¯s far larger than the 1.37 million that they ship there, Akazawa told reporters on Thursday before he left for Washington to hold his seventh round of trade negotiations with U.S. counterparts. The companies have invested more than $60 billion in the U.S. and created 2.3 million local jobs, Akazawa said.
¡°We have repeatedly explained to the U.S. that Japan¡¯s automobile industry has made an enormous contribution to the U.S. economy, and we intend to keep explaining this clearly and seek understanding,¡± Akazawa said. ¡°In any case, we consider the 25% automobile tariff to be unacceptable.¡±
Of the 3.3 million cars made in the U.S., about 300,000 are shipped from the U.S. to other nations, also helping to generate a trade surplus for the U.S., according to Akazawa.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to push ahead with trade talks when they met in Canada but failed to achieve a tariff deal.
Meanwhile, Japanese government sources have said the country will consider cutting its economic growth estimate for the current fiscal year ending in March 2026 due to the expected hit to global demand from U.S. tariffs.
The current projection of an 1.2% expansion, made at the end of last year, could be pushed down to below 1%, the sources said.
The government will finalize projections around the end of July, taking into account developments on U.S. tariffs, they said.
The government produces economic growth estimates twice each year with one made around summer used as a basis for drafting the state budget for the following fiscal year.
In its latest quarterly projections released on May 1, the Bank of Japan cut its economic growth forecast for fiscal 2025 to 0.5% from 1.1%, reflecting the expected hit from U.S. tariffs.
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