Japanese auto exports to US dive in June as tariffs bite
Published on: Fri, Jul 18, 2025
By: AFP Text Size: Japan's auto industry supported roughly 8% of its employment base, led by auto giants Toyota, Honda and Nissan. (Toyota pic) TOKYO: Japanese auto exports to the US tumbled more than a quarter in June, official data showed Thursday, amid growing concern at the failure of Tokyo to strike a deal to avoid the worst of Donald Trump's tariffs. Roughly 8% of jobs are tied to the auto industry in Japan, which is home to the world's top-selling carmaker Toyota as well as Honda, Nissan and other giants.
Advertisement The government is seeking relief from 25% US vehicle tariffs and other trade levies due to come into force on Aug 1, but no agreement has been reached despite several rounds of talks. Japan posted a trade surplus in the three months in June, with exports exceeding the value of imports by 153.1 billion yen (US$1.0 billion). Exports to the US fell 11.4% on-year to 1.7 trillion yen, with autos down 26.7%, finance ministry data showed. Shipments of pharmaceutical drugs and auto parts also contributed to the decline, the ministry said. Japan's trade surplus with the US shrank 22.9% year-on-year in June – the second straight monthly contraction, even as imports from the country slipped 2.0%. Japan, a key US ally and its biggest investor, is subject to the same 10% baseline tariffs imposed on most nations plus steeper levies on cars, steel and aluminium. Trump also announced an additional 24% 'reciprocal' toll on Japan in early April but later paused it along with similar measures on other countries. But earlier this month he informed a number of trading partners of new country-specific rates, hitting Japan with a 25% tax, up from the 24% announced in April. The levies will be applied from Aug 1. Reports said US treasury secretary Scott Bessent was expected to visit the World Expo in Osaka this weekend and meet Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Tokyo.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Malaysia Sun
2 hours ago
- Malaysia Sun
Iran agrees to resume nuclear talks with European states media
France, Germany, and the UK are threatening to reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic unless it agrees to a deal in August Iran, France, Germany, and the UK have agreed to resume talks regarding Tehran's nuclear program next week, Tasnim News Agency reported on Sunday, citing an anonymous source. The time and location are still under negotiation, but the talks are expected to take place at the level of deputy foreign ministers from Iran and the three European countries, according to the agency. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot warned last week that the three European countries - known collectively as the E3 - would reactivate UN sanctions on Iran unless a nuclear deal is reached by the end of next month. "France and its partners are... justified in reapplying global embargoes on weapons, banks, and nuclear equipment that were lifted 10 years ago," he told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. He added that this would be done "by the end of August at the latest." The E3 have the ability to use a 'snapback' mechanism to reinstate sanctions lifted from Iran under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, in exchange for the curtailment of the country's nuclear program. The original guarantors of the agreement were the E3 countries, Russia, China, the US, and EU. However, during his first term in office, President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the agreement. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has urged the E3 states and the EU to "act responsibly" and stop using threats, arguing that they have "no moral or legal basis" for using the snapback mechanism. "It was the US that withdrew from a two-year negotiated deal - coordinated by the EU in 2015 - not Iran," he said in a Telegram post on Friday. "It was the US that left the negotiation table in June this year and chose a military option instead." READ MORE: Iran sets terms for resuming nuclear talks US-Iran nuclear talks brokered by Oman collapsed last month shortly after Israel attacked Iran on June 13, claiming it was preempting the development of a nuclear bomb - an accusation that the Islamic Republic has denied. The US joined the conflict on June 22 and bombed three major Iranian nuclear facilities. (
The Star
5 hours ago
- The Star
'Japanese First' party emerges as election force with tough immigration talk
TOKYO (Reuters) -The fringe far-right Sanseito party emerged as one of the biggest winners in Japan's upper house election on Sunday, gaining support with warnings of a "silent invasion" of immigrants, and pledges for tax cuts and welfare spending. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the party broke into mainstream politics with its "Japanese First" campaign. Public broadcaster NHK projected the party to win as many as 22 seats, adding to the single lawmaker it secured in the 248-seat chamber three years ago. It has only three seats in the more powerful lower house. "The phrase Japanese First was meant to express rebuilding Japanese people's livelihoods by resisting globalism. I am not saying that we should completely ban foreigners or that every foreigner should get out of Japan," Sohei Kamiya, the party's 47-year-old leader, said in an interview with local broadcaster Nippon Television after the election. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner Komeito will likely lose their majority in the upper house, leaving them further beholden to opposition support following a lower house defeat in October. "Sanseito has become the talk of the town, and particularly here in America, because of the whole populist and anti-foreign sentiment. It's more of a weakness of the LDP and Ishiba than anything else," said Joshua Walker, head of the U.S. non-profit Japan Society. In polling ahead of Sunday's election, 29% of voters told NHK that social security and a declining birthrate were their biggest concern. A total of 28% said they worried about rising rice prices, which have doubled in the past year. Immigration was in joint fifth place with 7% of respondents pointing to it. "We were criticized as being xenophobic and discriminatory. The public came to understand that the media was wrong and Sanseito was right," Kamiya said. Kamiya's message grabbed voters frustrated with a weak economy and currency that has lured tourists in record numbers in recent years, further driving up prices that Japanese can ill afford, political analysts say. Japan's fast-ageing society has also seen foreign-born residents hit a record of about 3.8 million last year, though that is just 3% of the total population, a fraction of the corresponding proportion in the United States and Europe. INSPIRED BY TRUMP Kamiya, a former supermarket manager and English teacher, told Reuters before the election that he had drawn inspiration from U.S. President Donald Trump's "bold political style". He has also drawn comparisons with Germany's AfD and Reform UK although right-wing populist policies have yet to take root in Japan as they have in Europe and the United States. Post-election, Kamiya said he plans to follow the example of Europe's emerging populist parties by building alliances with other small parties rather than work with an LDP administration, which has ruled for most of Japan's postwar history. Sanseito's focus on immigration has already shifted Japan's politics to the right. Just days before the vote, Ishiba's administration announced a new government taskforce to fight "crimes and disorderly conduct" by foreign nationals and his party has promised a target of "zero illegal foreigners". Kamiya, who won the party's first seat in 2022 after gaining notoriety for appearing to call for Japan's emperor to take concubines, has tried to tone down some controversial ideas formerly embraced by the party. During the campaign, Kamiya, however, faced a backlash for branding gender equality policies a mistake that encourage women to work and keep them from having children. To soften what he said was his "hot-blooded" image and to broaden support beyond the men in their twenties and thirties that form the core of Sanseito's support, Kamiya fielded a raft of female candidates on Sunday. Those included the single-named singer Saya, who clinched a seat in Tokyo. Like other opposition parties Sanseito called for tax cuts and an increase in child benefits, policies that led investors to fret about Japan's fiscal health and massive debt pile, but unlike them it has a far bigger online presence from where it can attack Japan's political establishment. Its YouTube channel has 400,000 followers, more than any other party on the platform and three times that of the LDP, according to Sanseito's upper house breakthrough, Kamiya said, is just the beginning. "We are gradually increasing our numbers and living up to people's expectations. By building a solid organization and securing 50 or 60 seats, I believe our policies will finally become reality," he said. (Reporting by Tim Kelly and John Geddie and Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Dale Hudson)
The Star
6 hours ago
- The Star
Ex-Epstein lawyer calls for release of additional Epstein materials
FILE PHOTO: American lawyer Alan Dershowitz returns to the courtroom for the criminal trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump after a short break at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City, U.S., 20 May 2024. Sarah Yenesel/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of Jeffrey Epstein's former attorneys on Sunday called on the U.S. Justice Department to release additional investigative records from its sex-trafficking investigation, and urged the government to grant Epstein's former girlfriend immunity so that she can testify about his crimes. In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Alan Dershowitz said the grand jury transcripts thatAttorney General Pam Bondi on Friday asked a federal judge to unseal would not contain the types of information being sought by President Donald Trump's supporters, such as the names of Epstein's clientele. "I think the judge should release it, but they are not in the grand jury transcripts," Dershowitz said on Fox. "I've seen some of these materials. For example, there is an FBI report of interviews with alleged victims in which at least one of the victims names very important people," he said, adding that those names have been redacted. President Donald Trump has been under mounting pressure from his supporters to release additional information related to the government's sex-trafficking probe into Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial. Earlier this year, Bondi promised that the department would release additional materials including "a lot of names" and "a lot of flight logs." The department back-tracked on that promise earlier this month, after releasing a joint memo with the FBI which poured cold water on long-running conspiracy theories about Epstein by saying there was "no incriminating client list" or any evidence of blackmail. The memo also backed a prior FBI investigation which concluded that Epstein died by suicide and was not murdered in his jail cell. Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have faced a growing backlash by Trump's supporters since the memo was issued, prompting Trump last week to order the department to ask a court to unseal grand jury transcripts from the Epstein case. The U.S. government on Friday filed a motion in a Manhattan federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts in the cases of Epstein and former associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of five federal charges related to her role in Epstein's sexual abuse of underage girls. Maxwell is appealing her conviction and 20-year prison sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court. The release of the grand jury documents may fall short of what many of Trump's supporters have sought, including case files held by the administration, and a judge may reject the administration's request to make the transcripts public. Dershowitz on Sunday told "Fox News Sunday" that the information that Bondi did not request to be unsealed would be "far more informative and far more relevant." He added that the government should also grant Maxwell immunity so that she could testify before Congress about what knowledge she has of Epstein's alleged crimes. "She knows everything. She is the Rosetta Stone," he said of Maxwell. "If she were just given use immunity, she could be compelled to testify." (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
