THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
April 11, 2025 at 16:57 JST
Ryosei Akazawa, left, who will lead tariff talks with the United States, sits next to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at a meeting of all Cabinet ministers to discuss countermeasures against U.S. tariffs on April 11. (Takeshi Iwashita)
Tokyo’s point man on tariff talks with Washington is expected to meet with his U.S. counterparts in the United States as early as next week to seek exemptions from the punitive measures.
The government has been trying to arrange a meeting between Ryosei Akazawa, minister in charge of economic revitalization, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the earliest date.
Bessent will lead the U.S. side with Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
In a telephone conversation on April 7, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to appoint ministers to negotiate tariff issues.
A close ally of Ishiba for about 20 years, Akazawa will ask Washington to exclude Japanese products from Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” as well as separate levies on automobiles, steel and aluminum.
However, Japan has yet to decide on the cards it can play to strike a political deal with the Trump administration, according to government officials.
The first job for Akazawa is to “determine the scope of negotiations,” a source said.
The U.S. side appears to have a more specific agenda.
Writing about talks with Japan on the social media platform X, Bessent said, “I look forward to our upcoming productive engagement regarding tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers, currency issues, and government subsidies.”
Greer has said the United States will discuss access to Japan’s agricultural market.
The government on April 11 held the second meeting of all Cabinet ministers to discuss countermeasures against U.S. tariffs and set up a task force co-chaired by Akazawa and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi.
“U.S. tariffs could exert a profound impact on the domestic industry and the overall global economy,” Ishiba said at the meeting. “We will establish an all-Japan organization and respond with whole-of-government efforts.”
At a news conference, Akazawa said, “We must overcome the situation that can be called a ‘national crisis’ at any cost. I will make all-out efforts to address the challenge as the top priority with support from all Cabinet members.”
The government plans to set up a secretariat comprised of high-ranking officials from ministries and agencies to consider bargaining chips in negotiations with the United States and the impact of tariffs on Japan.
The secretariat will be headed by a deputy chief Cabinet secretary.
Japan has been holding working-level negotiations to seek tariff exemptions, sending senior officials of the Foreign Ministry and trade ministry to the United States.
However, government officials said they suspect that Trump has not been kept in the loop on what was discussed in those meetings.
An official said the White House is in an “unusual situation” in which no one says anything to the president.
The additional U.S. reciprocal tariffs, whose rates differ depending on the trading partner, took effect on April 9.
But Trump paused them for 90 days only about 13 hours later, leaving the minimum base portion of 10 percent in place.
(This article was compiled from reports by Chinami Tajika, Takuro Chiba and Narumi Ota.)
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