By Steve Holland and Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Japan is sending a team to negotiate on trade, U.S. President Donald Trump said, adding that he spoke earlier on Monday with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who separately said he told Trump to rethink tariff policies.
Trump’s decision to impose a 25% levy on auto imports, and a reciprocal 24% tariff on other Japanese goods, is expected to deal a huge blow to Japan’s export-heavy economy. Analysts predict the higher duties could knock up to 0.8% off economic growth.
“Countries from all over the world are talking to us. Tough but fair parameters are being set,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social platform.
Trump has put Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in charge of trade negotiations with Japan, Bessent said on social media.
The Japanese prime minister said he told Trump in a telephone call that his tariff policies are extremely disappointing and urged him to rethink.
“So we have a great relationship with Japan. We’re going to keep it that way,” Trump later told reporters on Monday.
Trump said last week that he would impose a 10% baseline tariff on all imports to the U.S. and higher duties on dozens of other countries, including some of Washington’s biggest trading partners, rattling global markets and bewildering U.S. allies.
Ishiba summoned key economic ministers, including Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato, Sunday evening and instructed them to be vigilant and respond to market developments, according to Japan’s Nikkei newspaper.
Bessent told Fox Business Network that he had not yet seen any proposals from Tokyo, but that he expects to have successful negotiations to reduce Japan’s non-tariff trade barriers.
Japan is among 50 to 70 countries that have approached the Trump administration so far about negotiations, Bessent said.
“Japan is a very important military ally. They’re very important economic ally, and the U.S. has a lot of history with them,” Bessent said. “So I would expect that Japan is going to get priority just because they came forward very quickly.”
Bessent added in a post on X that China was isolating itself by retaliating against Trump’s tariffs.
“For countries that don’t retaliate, we are at a maximum tariff level, and it is my hope that through good negotiations, all we will do is see levels come down,” Bessent told Fox Business Network.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Kanishka Singh and Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
