US ramps up tariff pressure as deal deadline loomsーNHK WORLD-JAPAN NEWS
US President Donald Trump has issued a new batch of tariff letters to eight more countries. Yugo Fushima from a business desk joins us more on this. So, Yugos, can you can you fill us in more on the latest developments with these tariffs? Sure. Among the latest letters, there was one that outlined uh 50% levies on uh Latin America’s largest economy, Brazil. Now, Trump had warned the US would hike tariffs on the so-called bricks countries, the leading emerging economies, right? They have to pay 10% if they’re in bricks because bricks was set up to hurt us. Bricks was set up to uh degenerate our dollar and take our dollar as the standard, take it off as the standard. And that’s okay if they want to play that game, but I can play that game. Trump had also targeted smaller economies with levies of 20 to 30%. He increased rates on both the Philippines and Brunai. All this comes after letters earlier this week to 14 countries including South Korea and Japan. Trump has pushed back the deadline for agreements with various countries by several weeks to August 1st. But reaching a deal at this point would be pretty difficult for some of them, right? Yes. I talked to a former uh negotiator with the Office of the US Trade Representative uh during the first Trump administration. David Bowling says the president won’t mind if there are no deals made with some of the countries. I think there is some sensitivities to trying to get deals where deals are possible, but if they’re not possible, I think this administration is fine that after August 1st, tariffs are going to go up for many countries. Maybe there’s a handful where you still have a negotiation, but uh that we have to remember the ultimate goal of tariff man is to raise tariffs. Higher tariffs would ultimately just hurt the consumers and the voters and the supporters of Mr. Trump. That is exactly right. But I don’t see the Trump administration, at least right now, really changing course. If the United States economy moved into a recession quickly, if inflation really spiked at that point, they may reassess. But I think if we look at the data right now, that’s not showing up yet. So you go, the letter sent to Japan says the country faces what Trump calls reciprocal tariffs of 25% from August 1st if no agreement is reached. And that’s up from the original 24%, right? Yes. Japan was one of the first countries to start negotiating with the US, although there has not been an agreement after weeks of talks. Now, Bowling says the US may have first hoped that Japan could be a model for other countries by signing the deal early, but not anymore. There had been probably early on in the administration the hope that well yes maybe we can reach an agreement quickly with Japan and that that might be a template or model for other agreements. But I think it’s become clear each one of them has sort of unique aspects to it. So it’s not so easy to come up with a template that’s easily transfor transferable to other countries. So even if the US agrees with Japan, it doesn’t really make a trend of other countries following suit. Maybe it could be helpful with South Korea and Germany because they are big automobile exporters and if there was an agreement on automobiles where that could be a helpful framework but for other countries Brazil or I don’t know India or you know that export different things and have different political sensitivities it’s it’s not going to be that useful. So what are the prospects for a deal between Tokyo and Washington now? I mean, Prime Minister Ishiva has sounded pretty tough on these deals. Yes, he has. We saw that in his comments on Thursday. We will protect our country without fail. We will agree to some of the things President Trump demands, but there are things we just cannot yield to. Bowling says the Trump team is fully aware the Japanese government is heading into an upper house election this month, and that could be a factor. Secretary Besson has said this, Japan has moved, you know, it’s in a election cycle right now. And so for Prime Minister Ishiva to make major concessions before the election, that could have been a major political headwind for Ishiba going into the upper house elections. So I’m guessing that they understand the domestic politics of some of this and that that is part of the reason that Ishiva has taken a tough stance and that the hope would be after you get past the upper house election if still prime minister then at that point there could be more flexibility on the part of the Japanese side. Mhm. So with the election on July 20th, that doesn’t leave much time before the August 1st deadline. It would be quite a rush to make a deal by then. Yes, it would. Bowling warns that there won’t be any more uh extensions beyond that. So he says that Japanese side really needs to come up with some kind of concession because it seems that Trump will not hesitate to pull the trigger on those punishing tariffs.
A former US trade negotiator says it will be difficult for many counties to reach trade deals to avoid punishing US tariffs set to go into effect on August 1. #japan #business #trade #usa #tariffs #donaldtrump
More stories on business and technology: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/tags/60/
Please subscribe HERE: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSPEjw8F2nQDtmUKPFNF7_A?sub_confirmation=1