(Reuters) – Japan’s trade minister said he had asked the United States not to impose trade tariffs on his country, but did not win any assurance that Japan would be exempt, including from a 25% steel and aluminium duty set to start on Wednesday.
“We agreed to continue close consultations with the U.S. government and to hold discussions at the working level as soon as possible,” Yoji Muto said in Washington D.C. on Monday after meetings with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett.
In a bid to persuade President Donald Trump to exempt Japan from tariffs on cars and other products, Muto and other senior Japanese officials are touting Japan as a close economic partner that has invested heavily in the U.S. economy and created millions of jobs.
The new 25% tariff rates on steel and aluminium imports into the United States are set take effect on March 12, according to the executive orders that Trump signed last month.
“We did not receive a response that Japan would be exempt,” Muto said. He added that the United States had acknowledged Japanese companies’ contributions to its economy, but he declined to elaborate on his counterparts’ stance otherwise.
“We will need to continue asserting our views,” he said.
In talks with his U.S. counterparts, Muto said they also discussed Japan buying more U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG), a gas pipeline project in Alaska, and Nippon Steel’s bid to buy U.S. Steel.
(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Writing by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Gerry Doyle)
