WASHINGTON – After waiting for so long for the initial round of the trade talks between the United States and Japan, the discussions will be start with a high speed to close the deal rapidly, says Japan’s chief negotiator.
Initial Discussion
The initial discussion was totally focused on agriculture and cars with looking forward to discuss about digital trade after later date. Japan’s Economy MInister Toshimitsu Motegi reported that the discussion closed with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Washington on tuesday.
He also said that there are some other issues as well that require more time and have been very critical and likely stay there.
Mr. Motegi added that from the beginning of the new session the discussions will get accelerated and digital trade will be discussed at the perfect time.
In USTR a statement was published which says that the two official had reaffirmed a goal of achieving “substantive results on trade” which is followed from last September’s joint statement by President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Particularly for Japan, there is a lot of discussion which are on the stake and Japan is willing to avoid all the tariffs and quotas on car exports to the US which would drastically dent the economy.
When we talk about the US side opening of Japan’s agriculture market and diminishing the trade deficit are the basic objectives which would appeal to Mr Trump’s support which is ahead of next year’s elections.
The latest data of March was released on Wednesday in Japan which was a trade data than showed monthly US shortage with Japan rising 9.8 percent from a year.
Motegi Will Come Back
Mr Motegi would come back to US next week in order to meet Mr. Lighthizer again, said Mr. Motegi and he added that it would be more appropriate if the meeting took place more often between two countries in order to solve serious agreement
Mr. Motegi also said that the possibility of negotiation is very low in other areas.
“The US people said that they would not include in the negotiation areas and they don’t expect that it will take long time. What matters is requirement of systematic reforms in Japan would take a really long time.”
He revised his view and have said that US will not apply auto tariffs to Japan while discussion was going on and the currency issues should not fall.
The lawmakers of US especially the ones who are representing their agriculture interest have been continuously forcing the administration of Trump to quickly wrap up the deal with Japan to get lost markets share which American farmers were suffering for over the past years as competitors such as Australia get benefited with multilateral deal given by the US.
Mr. Lighthizer asked senators that he knows about the uncertain and ambiguous situation of the farmers and if they win the market access for agriculture products in Japan are on the priority, in a recent hearing on Capitol Hill.
Replying to the question of senators who preferred the US to be in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Mr. Trump’s trade chief asked to deal with Japan and this can make up for farmer’s lost opportunities.
Megan Davies is a reporter for White Pine Tribune. After graduating from the University of Toronto, Megan got an internship at the CBC News and worked as a reporter and editor. Megan has also worked as a reporter for Global Toronto. Megan covers economy and community events for White Pine Tribune.
