Analysis-US-Japan trade deal averts worst for global economy
FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Japan's trade agreement with the U.S. could serve as the benchmark for many other deals currently being negotiated with Washington, and the global economy could just about support the 15% level agreed overnight, economists said.
Tokyo's deal with the U.S. lowers tariffs on auto imports to 15% from levies totalling 27.5% previously. Duties that were due to come into effect on other Japanese goods from August 1 will also be cut to 15% from 25%.
The deal with the world's fourth-largest economy, which includes commitments for U.S.-bound investment and loans, is the most significant of a clutch of pacts U.S. President Donald Trump has concluded to date. It raises pressure on China and the European Union, which both face crucial August deadlines.
Although 15% is still a significant duty, such a level is still manageable and less damaging than the volatility created by the uncertainty, which has made it near impossible for firms to plan investments, some economists argue.
"Average tariffs for the U.S. were around 2.5% for 2024 (while) currently, average tariffs stand around 17%," Mohit Kumar at Jefferies said, referring to the rise in global duties since Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" announcement on April 2.
"Our base case remains that when the dust settles, we could see average tariffs around 15%, though recent deals suggest that this number could be slightly higher," Kumar said. "While a negative from a macro point of view, the world can live with 15% or so tariffs."
Financial markets heaved a sigh of relief on Wednesday.
AUTOMAKERS LEAD STOCK GAINS
Japan's Nikkei stock index jumped 3.5% on the deal but European shares were also higher, driven by automakers, on growing optimism that workable deals are possible.
"It looks like the benchmark for major economies is going to be 10-15% and a somewhat higher level for smaller economies," Derek Halpenny, head of research at MUFG in London, said.
Volvo Car stocks jumped more than 10% while Germany's Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, all with significant U.S. sales, rose between 4% and 7%.
"This more positive trade news has really helped to ease investor fears that tariffs are about to snap back higher on August 1," Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid said.
"But of course, the threat of much higher tariffs still remains for several large economies, including the 30% on the EU, 35% on Canada and 50% on Brazil," Reid added. "We also know from experience that we might not know the outcome until hours before the deadline."
Longer-term U.S. inflation expectations eased a touch on the deal, suggesting that trade agreements could alleviate some price fears and give the U.S. Federal Reserve room to lower interest rates later this year.
However, markets continue to see a close to zero chance of a Fed rate cut next week and the first move is not fully priced in until October.
The EU, which negotiates trade deals on behalf of its 27 members, could be next. Trump has said he will impose 30% tariffs by August 1, triggering threats of retaliatory measures from the EU.
Such a level would be economically debilitating for a bloc that relies heavily on trade and would wipe out whole chunks of transatlantic commerce. The EU originally hoped it could secure a tariff of around 10% but has since accepted the outcome is likely to be several points higher at least.
Pressures also remain high on China, which is facing an August 12 deadline before tariffs could snap back to 145% on the U.S. side and 125% on the Chinese side without a deal or a negotiated extension.
"The US-Japan deal will put more pressure on other major Asia exporters to secure better deals," ING said. "We've already seen trade deals with the Philippines and Indonesia. Before 1 August, there should be more deals struck with Asian exporters."
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Transcript: Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Aug. 3, 2025
The following is the transcript of an interview with Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Aug. 3, 2025. MARGARET BRENNAN: And we're back with Bank of America CEO, Brian Moynihan, good morning, and thank you for being here with us. BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Good to be here again, Margaret, hope you're doing well. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I'm hoping you can give us some clarity here on what's going on with the economy. Your Bank of America economists say no rate hikes this year and no recession. Is that still the case after Friday's jobs report? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Yeah, it's still the case, and that's a—less growth than they would have had six, nine months ago, and reflects the impact of the tariff war and the trade and all that—but they still think we continue to grow. And we're growing at a slow rate, say, one and a half percent this year, little more next year, and a little more the year after that. But it will take inflation—for the Fed to get inflation out of the system, really through the end of '26 into '27 down to the 2% level. And that's why they have the Fed holding. What they believe is sort of in the middle of next year, the Fed will start cutting and bring the Fed funds rate closer to what would be a more normal rate, around three percent, three and a half percent. MARGARET BRENNAN: Even though we saw this, really, kind of astounding dissent by two members of the Fed saying, we do need to move on interest rates. Your prediction from your economists is that that's not appropriate at this time. BRIAN MOYNIHAN: They don't think it's—they're going to move. Now, the market says they're going to move in September, maybe twice this year. The market was at seven times one point this year. Now they're down to two—then they're down to one, now they're up to two. This is going to move around, but the reality is, two things people should really keep in focus. One is, until the inflation is out of the system, the Fed is going to be a little—very careful, and that's what they said. And then secondly, the rate we're going to go to is a rate that is more normal than pre-global financial crisis, more of a 3%, 3.5% percent rate, which actually means the American economy is probably functioning better, frankly. MARGARET BRENNAN: So on that point, the Wall Street Journal, we were reading in, puts the tariff tax increase as costing $360 billion a year. That's one of the largest tax increases in history, they say. Do you believe the administration's arguments that it's really only foreigners who are going to pay the cost of this. Do you think economists are overstating the negative impact? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Well, I think no one really knows, honestly, because this is a different regime than we've been in before. And there's- so they're trying to extrapolate from things from 50 years ago, when economies were different structured. Our team thinks it's- has an impact on inflation of about a, you know, 30, 40 basis points— MARGARET BRENNAN: Meaning adding to prices people are paying. BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Yeah, adding to the inflation rate in the United States. But we need to back up. What the real impact right now is the new Trump administration coming in had four or five policy areas they were really going to go after, having learned in the four years, they had to move very quickly. Those were around trades and tariff, immigration and taxation and deregulation. What businesses, and I just was in the Midwest with a bunch of businesses, they're all trying to do is figure out what the answer will be so they can go ahead and make their plans for '26. So the activity that's slowed down has more to do with people just trying to figure out the answer. It doesn't mean every answer is acceptable. Most answers are. So what do they have answers on? Obviously, a tax bill getting done. That's a good answer for business, because it makes the rates permanent. What's the second thing they have an answer on. They have an answer now on the range of trade possibilities. And so as they think about the trade possibilities, they sit there and say, tariffs might not be worse than x. They see some deals getting done, all of which is good work. What they don't have an answer on is deregulation. Yes, new regulations stop, but they are hoping for more deregulation, so that will help their business models going forward. And then the last is immigration. What will immigration really settle in like. And that's what they tell us. So they're not using their lines of credit, they're not- the indications from them are they're being a little more cautious, really waiting for some answers. MARGARET BRENNAN: Businesses aren't hiring, either, we saw in this jobs data on Friday, that was the worst three months for job growth since the pandemic. Your firm, when I was reading the analysis, points to a number of different factors, and one of them is artificial intelligence and the adoption of that impacting hiring. How dramatically is it reshaping the job market? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: I think this is sort of a question of almost a glass half full, half empty type of thing. So the impact— MARGARET BRENNAN: No pun intended. BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Exactly, sorry about that. But the impact of technology on human work content as a percentage of productivity has been huge. In our company- in 2010 when I started with the management team, we had 285,000 people. We have 212,000 people today. That was the impact of technology. We're bigger, more customers, more transactions, more reports to the government, more data, et cetera. So the impact has always been huge. AI gives you a place to go that we've never been able to go before. In other words, they're jobs that take text, think about it, and produce it. Many, many jobs in a company. Our research team, now you're able to maybe use a machine to enhance that activity. So we believe that people harness AI for their benefit are going to be very successful. My teammates who harness AI for their benefit are very successful. It's nervous making for young kids now, saying, will the jobs be there for me? MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Then I say, look back historically. America has a lot more people working here. And think about the amount of technology came in over the last 50 years, and we have twice as many people work in this country as we did 50 years ago, twice as many, and the population has only gone up by about a third. So think about that dynamic as it finds its way through. That's the glass half full part of it. But it will have an impact. I don't think it's impacting a lot right now, because many companies are just trying to learn how to use it. Technology has impacted, and AI gives it a place to go it hasn't gone so far. MARGARET BRENNAN: So we're talking about all the unknowns and why it's kind of hard to model things right now. Well, Friday, the President fired, as you know, the head statistician that comes up with these jobs numbers and presents them to the public. The former head during the first Trump administration came out in her defense and said this is- this is without merit, and it undermines credibility of data. Are you concerned by this firing, and do you feel there is political pressure here? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Well, I think that's more politics. And I know I'm in Washington, DC, and that's what we're supposed to talk about-- [CROSSTALK] MARGARET BRENNAN: Government data is, is— BRIAN MOYNIHAN: but the reality is, the data— MARGARET BRENNAN: hugely important modeling BRIAN MOYNIHAN: It's 2025 MARGARET BRENNAN: as you know. [END CROSSTALK] BRIAN MOYNIHAN: It's 2025 and the data should be able to be— they use surveys and things like that, which, frankly, just aren't as effective anymore. So if you look at the rate of people who respond to their surveys, it's down from 60% level to 50% level. You know, we don't use surveys (unintelligible) we do. We watch what consumers really do. We watch what businesses really do. They can get this data, I think, other ways and I think that's where the focus ought to be. How do we get the data to be more resilient and more predictable and more understandable? Because what bounces around is restatements, and that was one of the largest restatements, going back five or seven years in the pandemic, five years in the pandemic, that creates doubt around it. And so I think the key is, let's get- let's spend some money. Let's bring the information together. Let's find where else in the government money is reported. We report millions and millions of data points to the government every day. The data is out there somewhere. MARGARET BRENNAN: Finally, back in January, you were at Davos, President Trump talked about Bank of America. TRUMP ON TAPE: Many conservatives complained that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank, and that included a place called Bank of America. This conservative- They don't take conservative business. And I don't know if the regulators mandated that because of Biden or what. MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you want to respond to the allegation that conservatives are not being allowed to do business with your bank? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: We have 70 million consumers, and we're the biggest small business lender. That's not- the issue they're focused on is the regulators impact on this industry. And you heard Senator Scott talk about this this week. This reputation, this after the fact, look, that you banked x, and now after the fact, you're gonna say x didn't turn out to be what you thought. So we look at it. We look at it based on risk. People may feel those decisions are made for some other reason, but we always make it on what's best for our company, what's best for our client. MARGARET BRENNAN: Are there industries you're uncomfortable doing business with? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: No, we do business with really-- MARGARET BRENNAN: Guns, oil and gas, tobacco, all of it? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: We do business with all those industries. Individual companies because of credit decision stuff, that's different. But the reality is, is that if they gave us clarity from the regulatory thing and avoid the second guessing, that would be helpful, and I think that's what the President was pointing out, if you listen to him. MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. Brian Moynihan, thank you for giving us some insight into the data you are seeing. Face the Nation will be back in a moment. Stay with us. 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"That has given us a buffer, no question about it, that other countries don't have right now," said Prof Hampson. It means Canada is overall paying a much lower tariff rate than many of the deals already inked with the US, like the EU, South Korea and Japan at 15%, or Indonesia and the Philippines at 19%. Ottawa has also brought in some relief programmes for affected industries and has also collected about C$1.5bn more in import duties than in the same period last year, due to the counter tariffs. Why Trump's global tariffs 'victory' may well come at a high price See the Trump tariffs list by country Five things now pricier in Canada due to tariffs 'In business, indecision is killer' - Canadian firms seek certainty And while in the US consumer confidence is up and prices there have remained contained, it helps Canada's negotiating position if they can wait for Americans to start feeling the pain of tariffs. "It's Americans who are going to squawk," said Prof Hampson. Ms Fortin-Lefaivre predicts US businesses, especially smaller firms that don't have the same resources to withstand them, will be pressuring political leaders. "So that pressure could play to our advantage," she said. Canadians also appear willing to give the new prime minister some leeway. Opinion polls suggest they are generally satisfied with his handling of trade. Carney "understands that doing what's best for the economy right now is actually what's best for him politically", Martha Hall Findlay, director of the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy and a former Liberal MP, told the BBC. Trump has said he is imposing tariffs to boost domestic manufacturing, open overseas markets and raise money for the government. He is also using them to push countries like Canada on a range of non-trade issues, including military spending. In the last few weeks, Ottawa has significantly ramped up its defence spending, boosted security at the shared border and killed a digital tax opposed by American tech firms. Those moves show Canada is "doing what the Americans wanted us to do", said Ms Fortin-Lefaivre. She hopes Canadian negotiators are pushing for tariffs to be as low as possible, as well as working to ensure the two deeply integrated supply chains are able to continue working together. Canada is pressing for relief on the 50% steel and aluminium tariffs, which are squeezing US automakers. And on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signalled in an interview with CNBC that is an option on the table. Trump meanwhile, has raised a number of longstanding trade irritants besides fentanyl, including Canada's protections around its dairy industry. Ottawa has previously warned of more countermeasures to come if talks collapse, though political appetite for that may be waning. 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