Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has asked to separate the bilateral security of conversations with the US to alleviate the effects of the tariff war declared by the president of the United States, Donald Trump Trumpright now paralyzed by the president to give a negotiation opportunity to the affected countries.
The governments of Washington and Tokyo have planned a new round of conversations to try to build bridges after Trump came to announce 24 percent tariffs to all Japanese exports. This tax has been suspended for a month and a half, but the United States A 10 percent that adds to those already in force on steel, aluminum and vehicles still applies.
Before declaring the levies, Trump had expressed his discomfort with the security agreement in force with Tokyo. “I love Japan”, He declared president in March about the bilateral pact of 1960. “But the agreement is true that it is interesting: we have to protect them, but they do not have to protect us,” he added.
In a first response, Ishiba said Trump made a partially inaccurate interpretation of the terms of the agreement. “It is true that the agreement does not demand that Japan come out in defense of the United States, but it does not stipulate at any time that the United States protects unilaterally to Japan,” explained the Japanese president in an appearance before Parliament.
Now, Ishiba has reiterated from that the security issue is outside the ongoing conversations on the subject of tariffs. “I don’t think it is appropriate to talk about security and trade together. We should address security problems without linking them to tariffs,” Istiba said in comments collected by the official Kyodo news agency.
The prime minister, after this week’s contact rounds, took the opportunity to wish for a fruitful end of the conversations as one of the first countries that agreed to establish bilateral negotiations with the US to relieve tariff loads. “We have to produce a desirable result for both parties and we want to take the necessary time to create a model for the rest of the world,” he added.
