Donald Trump announces trade deal with Japan
The president said Japan would invest 'at my direction' 550 billion dollars into the US and would 'open' its economy to American cars and rice.
The 15% tax on imported Japanese goods is a meaningful drop from the 25% rate that Mr Trump, in a recent letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, said would be levied starting on August 1.
Early Wednesday, Mr Ishiba acknowledged the new trade agreement, saying it would benefit both sides and help them work together.
Japanese PM Shigeru Ishiba acknowledged the new trade agreement (Kyodo News via AP)
With the announcement, Mr Trump is seeking to tout his ability as a dealmaker — even as his tariffs, when initially announced in early April led to a market panic and fears of slower growth that for the moment appear to have subsided.
Key details remained unclear from his post, such as whether Japanese-built cars would face a higher 25% tariff that Mr Trump imposed on the sector.
But the framework fits a growing pattern for Mr Trump, who is eager to portray the tariffs as a win for the US. His administration says the revenues will help reduce the budget deficit and more factories will relocate to America to avoid the import taxes and cause trade imbalances to disappear.
The wave of tariffs continues to be a source of uncertainty about whether it could lead to higher prices for consumers and businesses if companies simply pass along the costs.
The problem was seen sharply on Tuesday after General Motors reported a 35% drop in its net income during the second quarter as it warned that tariffs would hit its business in the months ahead, causing its stock to tumble.
A staff member distributes an extra edition of a newspaper reporting that President Donald Trump announced a trade framework with Japan (Eugene Hoshiko/AP)
As the August 1 deadline for the tariff rates in his letters to world leaders is approaching, Mr Trump also announced a trade framework with the Philippines that would impose a tariff of 19% on its goods, while American-made products would face no import taxes. The president also reaffirmed his 19% tariffs on Indonesia.
The US ran a 69.4 billion dollar trade imbalance on goods with Japan last year, according to the Census Bureau.
America had a trade imbalance of 17.9 billion dollars with Indonesia and an imbalance of 4.9 billion dollars with the Philippines. Both nations are less affluent than the US and an imbalance means America imports more from those countries than it exports to them.
The president is set to impose the broad tariffs listed in his recent letters to other world leaders on August 1, raising questions of whether there will be any breakthrough in talks with the European Union. At a Tuesday dinner, Mr Trump said the EU would be in Washington on Wednesday for trade talks.
'We have Europe coming in tomorrow, the next day,' Mr Trump told guests.
The president earlier this month sent a letter threatening the 27 member states in the EU with 30% taxes on their goods to be imposed starting on August 1.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
23 minutes ago
- The Independent
As Trump's tariff deadline looms, a clothing factory in the tiny African nation of Lesotho goes dark
The deafening roar of hundreds of sewing machines has gone silent. Spools of thread in every color are covered in dust. The warehouse is dark and empty. In the tiny African nation of Lesotho, clothing manufacturer Tzicc's business has dried up in the face of tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump 's administration. A few months ago, work was steady. The factory's 1,300 employees has made and exported sportswear to American stores, including JCPenney, Walmart and Costco. But when Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners in April, Lesotho found itself topping the list, with a rate of 50% — higher even than that of China, where the economy is 8,000 times larger. Officials here and economic experts said they were baffled. Since then, Trump backed off — temporarily. During a monthslong pause for trade talks, the U.S. has charged a baseline 10% tariff and announced new rates for dozens of countries starting Friday. Lesotho's rate will be set at Trump's whim, with aides suggesting that tariffs charged on goods from smaller African countries could top 10%. Many nations have received letters laying out a new tariff. With the pause set to expire Friday, Lesotho officials say they've not received one and they find themselves among the countries where Trump says officials simply don't have time for one-on-one negotiations. Leaders — and the 12,000 people employed by garment factories exporting to the U.S. market — are still waiting. The damage has already rippled through Lesotho's economy, where textile manufacturing comprises the largest private industry with more than 30,000 workers in 2024. For Tzicc and its customers, the threat and apparent singling out of Lesotho were enough. Management decided to rush to deliver preexisting orders before tariffs resumed. But American buyers stopped placing new orders. With no work left, virtually all the factory's employees were sent home — potentially permanently. 'Well, unfortunately, we finished,' factory compliance manager Rahila Omar said, pointing out the irony of the strategy as she walked among rows of silenced and covered machines. 'That is why now we don't have any work.' Omar is one of a handful of employees left in the eerily quiet factory. A few remain in the accounting department; others empty leftover stock to a warehouse elsewhere. Officials and workers fear this may be a sign of what's to come for other factories in Lesotho, where poverty is widespread among the population of 2 million and most textile workers single-handedly support their families. Lesotho's tiny economy was threatened with giant tariffs In March, a month before slapping Lesotho with the 50% tariff, Trump described it as a place 'nobody has ever heard of," struggling to pronounce the nation's name in a speech criticizing U.S. foreign aid. It's true Lesotho is a 'very minuscule economy," as its own trade minister, Mokhethi Shelile, described it. But its relationship with Washington dates back decades. The U.S. was the first country to open an embassy in the capital, Maseru, after Lesotho declared independence from the United Kingdom in 1966. The military received U.S. training, and hundreds of millions in U.S. funds were sent to Lesotho to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic via the now defunctUSAID office and the PEPFAR program. As textiles grew to become Lesotho's main export, some 75% of its product went to the U.S. Lesotho became known as Africa's denim capital. If an American purchased jeans from a U.S. brand such as Wrangler or Levi's, they may have been 'Made in Lesotho,' as tags still note. In 2000, the U.S. signed the African Growth and Opportunity Act, allowing Lesotho and other African nations to export goods to the U.S. duty free. Shelile said he was in the process of negotiating AGOA's September renewal when he was awakened in the middle of the night by texts from aides bearing news of the 50% U.S. tariffs. 'No, this cannot be real,' Shelile remembers thinking. 'What did we do to deserve this?' According to the Trump administration, Lesotho charges a 99% tariff on U.S. goods. The government here said it doesn't know how the U.S. calculated that. In theory, the tariff decision was based on trade deficit: Lesotho's exports to the U.S. were around $240 million last year — mainly clothing and diamonds — and imports from the U.S. were only $2.8 million. But in practice, the math is more complicated than that. And in reality, Lesotho simply cannot afford to import more U.S. products. Nearly half the population lives below the poverty line. 'The trade deficit that exists between Lesotho and the U.S. is a natural trade deficit that can happen when you have these types of disparities between two economies," Shelile said. "It cannot be breached and certainly cannot be breached by imposing tariffs.' Lesotho declared a state of emergency over unemployment Last year, Lesotho's overall unemployment rate was about 30%, national data shows. For those 35 and younger, it was nearly 50%. The threat of tariffs has exacerbated the national unemployment troubles, prompting the government to declare a state of disaster this month. 'No matter how we slice it, we've already had a lot of losses," Shelile said. "People have lost quite a lot money. And to claw back and come back to where we were before this is going to take time.' Most of the 12,000 people hired by Lesotho's 11 factories exporting to the U.S. are women with children to feed and school fees to pay. Of those, 9,000 jobs are directly in the line of fire and an additional 40,000 will suffer indirectly from the U.S.-imposed tariffs, Shelile said. 'We're talking people in real estate that are leasing some rooms,' he said. 'We're talking people in transport, whether it's long-distance haulage to the port, or it is a taxi driver taking people to work in the morning. They are going be affected.' Mapontso Mathunya used to work on Tzicc's cutting room floor and is now unemployed. Her husband also is out of a steady job. With two young children, Mathunya was the family's breadwinner. She now tries to sell snacks and cigarettes on the street but finds it a daily struggle to bring home even a few cents. 'Our financial burden has been heavy," she said. 'Things are bad.' The future of this factory and others remains in limbo The future of the Tzicc factory depends on what happens Friday, compliance manager Omar said. Owned by a Taiwanese national, the factory has been open since mid-1999. In a peak month, it made up to 1.5 million pieces of clothing for JCPenney. Key U.S. customers for Tzicc — JCPenney, Walmart and Costco — did not reply to AP to comment. Pivoting to the neighboring South African market, one of the solutions proposed by the trade minister and industry consultants, wouldn't be enough to even cover the employees' payroll, Omar said. And even if American buyers return, it's unlikely the factory could rehire all its 1,300 workers, she added. Today, just a few blocks away, former employees try their luck looking for work at other factories that are still operating. Most are turned away. 'Life is difficult,' former worker Mathunya said. 'There is nothing, nothing at all. People don't have money.' __ Pascalinah Kabi in Maseru, Josh Boak in Washington and Anne D'Innocenzio in New York contributed. ___ For more on Africa and development: The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Scotsman
23 minutes ago
- Scotsman
Donald Trump: Nicola Sturgeon was a 'terrible' first minister
The US President made the comment to journalists on Air Force One Sign up to our Politics newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Donald Trump has described Nicola Sturgeon as a 'terrible' first minister as he flew home to the US after a four-day visit to Scotland. The US President made the comment to journalists on Air Force One as he continued to heap praise on John Swinney, the current First Minister and SNP leader, who he met during his visit. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The pair had dinner at Trump International in Aberdeenshire on Monday evening, where Mr Swinney said he raised the issue of whisky tariffs with the President, and held a further 15-minute meeting on Tuesday morning. Nicola Sturgeon | PA The First Minister later said a 'window of opportunity' had arisen to secure a tariff exemption for Scotch whisky. But the US President told journalists they "did not really discuss" tariffs during the meeting. However, he said he had 'a lot of respect' for Mr Swinney. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad "I didn't have a lot of respect for the woman that preceded him,' Mr Trump added. 'I thought she was terrible as a first minister of Scotland. But I think John is doing a very good job as First Minister." A source close to Ms Sturgeon told the BBC: "Trump's lack of respect for women is hardly news. That said, the feeling was entirely mutual.' The former first minister, who stood down in 2023, previously described some of the views expressed by Mr Trump as 'deeply abhorrent'. She was succeeded by Humza Yousaf, who resigned after just over a year. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad On Tuesday, the President singled Mr Swinney out for praise during the opening ceremony for his new golf course in Aberdeenshire. President Trump departed from Scotland on Tuesday evening. | AFP via Getty Images "I also want to thank your First Minister, who's here," Mr Trump told the audience of assembled dignitaries. "John, will you stand up? John Swinney, who's a terrific guy and he loves golf and he loves the people of this country, and we really appreciate it. You're really a very special guy. Thank you very much for everything, John." Elsewhere, Mr Trump praised Scotland as a 'special place' during an interview on the Pod Force One podcast, arguing it does not have 'big crime' like the US. Asked if he could become first minister in future, Mr Trump said Scotland has 'a very good First Minister right now'. But put to him that he "could do it", the President said: "I could do that. I might be eligible. I could be within six months or something.'
South Wales Argus
28 minutes ago
- South Wales Argus
Trump criticised ‘terrible first minister' Sturgeon on flight back to US
He made the comments on Air Force One as he travelled back to Washington following his five-day visit to Scotland. During his stay, he had a two-hour dinner on Monday with current First Minister John Swinney, alongside Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. Mr Swinney, who also met Mr Trump on Tuesday morning, said he had used the talks to push the president to exempt Scotch from US tariffs. Speaking to reporters on his flight home, the president was asked if he offered to drop the levy on Scotland's national drink. He replied: 'No. We really didn't discuss it much. But I have a lot of respect for him [Mr Swinney].' Journalists began asking questions again before Mr Trump interjected: 'I didn't have a lot of respect for the woman that preceded him – I thought she was terrible as a first minister of Scotland. 'But I think John is doing a very good job of first minister.' A source close to Ms Sturgeon responded: 'Trump's lack of respect for women is hardly news. 'That said, the feeling was entirely mutual.' US President Donald Trump made the comments after a five-day visit to Scotland (Chris Furlong/PA) Ms Sturgeon added on her Instagram account: 'Feeling was mutual, Donnie. 'Forever proud to represent all the things that offend your view of the world.' Mr Trump criticised Ms Sturgeon, who became first minister in 2014, during her resignation in 2023. He described her as a 'failed woke extremist' and a 'crazed leftist' who 'symbolises everything wrong with identity politics'. When he was first elected as president in 2016, Ms Sturgeon described Mr Trump's behaviour and rhetoric as 'abhorrent'. Mr Trump left Scotland on Tuesday after visiting his golf courses in Turnberry, South Ayrshire, and Menie in Aberdeenshire. During his stay he struck a trade agreement, described by him as 'the biggest in history', with the EU, and held a meeting with Sir Keir to improve the UK-US trade deal. As he opened his new golf course in Aberdeenshire, Donald Trump asked John Swinney to stand so he could thank him (Jane Barlow/PA) Mr Swinney said following his talks with the US leader that Mr Trump had shown a 'willingness' to move on Scotch tariffs, which currently sit at 10%. During Mr Trump's speech to open a new golf course at Menie on Tuesday morning, he asked the First Minister to stand to thank him. He said: 'John Swinney is a terrific guy – and loves golf and loves the people of this country, and we really appreciate it. 'You're really a very special guy. Thank-you very much for everything, John.'
