Explainer: What is Japan's trade policy on rice?
Tokyo has not budged on rice, a staple food and cultural heritage that it says is fundamental to its national food security. The rice market is largely protected with trade barriers, although a domestic shortage and a spike in prices have led to a surge in imports this year.
What is Japan's trade policy on rice?
Under a World Trade Organization (WTO) "minimum access" framework introduced in 1995, Japan imports about 770,000 metric tonnes of rice tariff-free every year. Up to 100,000 tonnes of that is earmarked for staple rice, equivalent to about 1% of total domestic consumption of about 7 million tonnes.
Of the total 767,000 tonnes Japan imported in the last fiscal year to March 2025, 45% came from the United States.
Beyond the "minimum access" framework, Japan imposes a levy of 341 yen (76 baht) per kilogramme, which has, for the most part, effectively priced imports out of the market.
As domestic rice prices soared over the past year, a panel advising the Finance Ministry proposed expanding imports of staple rice - which is eaten at meals rather than used for feed or as an ingredient in other products - saying that lifting the 100,000-tonne tariff-free cap could help stabilise supply.
In the annual report released by the US Trade Representative in March, Washington criticised Japan's rice import and distribution system as "highly regulated and nontransparent" and said that it limited US exporters' ability to have "meaningful access" to Japanese consumers.
Is Japan importing more rice?
A doubling in domestic rice prices from the levels of a year ago has fuelled a surge in imports, as businesses and consumers clamour for cheaper options.
In the fiscal year that ended in March 2025, tariff-free imports of staple rice hit the 100,000-tonne cap for the first time in seven years. About 60,000 tonnes came from the US.
In an effort to provide cheaper rice to consumers more quickly, the Farm Ministry brought forward to June a tender usually held in September for the first 30,000 tonnes of tariff-free, imported staple rice for this year.
Of the total tendered, 25,541 tonnes were from the US, followed by 1,500 tonnes from Australia and 708 tonnes from Thailand.
For tariffed staple rice, private companies imported some 10,600 tonnes in May alone, of which about three-quarters came from the US, according to Finance Ministry data. That compares with total imports of 3,004 tonnes for all of fiscal 2024.
What happened in the last US-Japan trade deal?
The last bilateral trade deal was sealed in 2019 during Trump's first term, with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The US aimed to restore its farmers' lost market share after Trump pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact in 2017.
Japan made concessions on US beef and pork, agreeing to gradually lower or eliminate tariffs, but rice was left out. Under TPP, Japan would have accepted 70,000 tonnes of US staple rice per year tariff-free under a US-specific quota, but this was not included in the bilateral deal.
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