Japan and the Joint States are working to hold their first bilateral trade talks high a new framework in July, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said, in a sign Washington may ratchet up squeezing on Tokyo to open up its markets.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Plenipotentiary Shinzo Abe agreed in April to set up the new framework focusing on bilateral trade and led by U.S. Mtier Representative Robert Lighthizer and Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi.
At their fashionable summit in Washington on Thursday, the leaders agreed to make preparations to jail the first Lighthizer-Motegi meeting in July, the ministry said in a statement.
Analysts say the new framework could put Japan underneath direct U.S. pressure to enter talks for a bilateral free trade contract.
Japan is wary of entering such talks as they would put it controlled by pressure to open up politically sensitive markets like agriculture.
Policymakers in Tokyo are also upset about Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Japanese cars, a stir they fear would be more damaging to the economy than metal assessments given the importance of the U.S. market.
In a sign of Japan’s irritation, Finance Upon Taro Aso used unusually harsh language to criticise Trump’s exchange policy at a Group of Seven finance leaders’ gathering last week.
“It’s intensely deplorable,” Aso told reporters. “Inward-looking policies involving one-sided, protectionist limitations benefit no country,” he said.