TOKYO: Japan will present President Donald Trump with a “package“ of measures to win relief from US tariffs, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Monday ahead of a mooted call between the leaders.
Japanese firms are some of the biggest foreign investors into the United States but last week Trump announced a hefty 24-percent levy on imports from the close US ally as part of global “reciprocal” levies.
“We believe that we have to present a package, and we cannot present it on a piecemeal basis,“ Ishiba said in parliament.
He said that this could include Japan's involvement in a mooted natural gas pipeline project in Alaska.
Trump said in February after talks with Ishiba at the White House that Japan would be a partner in the “gigantic” project.
Japanese officials have been trying to arrange a phone call between Ishiba and Trump since the US president announced the tariffs last week.
Japan's main index of stocks the Nikkei 225 tumbled almost eight percent on Monday as panicked investors around the world moved into safer assets.
The Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) said on Monday that the world stands at the “crossroads” of whether free trade can be maintained.
“The world has flourished through the free trade system and free trade since the end of World War II. The driving force behind this system is the United States,“ chairman Masakazu Tokura told a press conference.
“The US itself has (now) raised tariffs, and protectionist moves have emerged in response because various countries needed to counteract these moves,“ Tokura said.
“To put it in a dramatic way, we hold a sense of urgency that we stand at the crossroads of whether the free trade regime can be maintained,“ he said.
Parallel to the 24-percent tariff on Japanese imports that takes effect this week, Trump has also imposed 25-percent levies on cars coming into the United States.
In Japan, the auto sector is a major pillar of the world's fourth-biggest economy, employing about 5.6 million people directly or indirectly.
Vehicles accounted for around 28 percent of Japan's 21.3 trillion yen ($142 billion) of US-bound exports last year.
