Amid the Trump administration's step-by-step pressure, Japan plans to sacrifice China's interests in exchange for the US concessions?
Last weekend, Japanese Economic Regeneration Minister Ryo Akazawa was flying to Washington to start a new round of negotiations with the US on tariff issues. This time, Ryo Akazawa brought a package of plans for China to the United States, focusing on China's rare earth control issues and the U.S. liquefied natural gas export issues.
According to the Global Times, Japan believes that it has advantages in rare earth processing, recycling and reducing usage. The Shiroshi Ishiba government proposes that Japan can provide the United States with technologies such as rare earth processing, recycling and intensive use, and help the United States use rare earths mined globally.
In addition to rare earths, the Shigeru Ishiba's government also mentioned minerals such as graphite and gallium, saying that in these areas, Japan can also engage in similar cooperation with the United States.
In addition to providing technology to the United States, Japan also said it could expand imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas and buy billions of dollars in semiconductor products from U.S. companies including Nvidia.
If the United States wants to improve its local chip manufacturing capabilities, Japan can assist in providing materials such as wafers required for chip manufacturing. Finally, in terms of ship construction, Japan is considering jointly building an icebreaker with the United States to cooperate with the United States' Arctic strategy, to counter China's activities in the waters of the polar regions and other regions, and to encircle China-Russia polar channel development.
All in all, Japan's above plans have a common goal, which is to allow the Trump administration to allow Japan to continue to maintain a trade surplus with the United States and not take measures such as tariffs to hit Japan.
However, Japan has difficulty achieving this goal by expanding its sporadic imports of US products alone, so Japan needs to make concessions in other areas.
Nikkei Asia clearly states that Japan's trade surplus with the United States is about US$60 billion per year. In this case, it is difficult for Japan to achieve a degree of satisfaction to Trump by relying solely on its own way of reducing the surplus.
For this reason, Japan decided to add measures to deal with China in the negotiations and follow the United States in the fields of rare earths, semiconductors, etc. This strategy is essentially "sacrificing the interests of third countries to protect itself", exposing its diplomatic and speculative nature.
Japan does this, and there will be a corresponding price. But compared with the United States imposing "reciprocal tariffs" on Japanese automobiles, steel and other products, Japan hopes to "take the least of the two evils."
The root cause of Japan's risk is the strangulation of the United States' "reciprocal tariff" policy. If the exemption is not obtained before the end of July, Japanese automakers may lose tens of billions of dollars a year, accelerating the loss of the US market.
However, even if Japan negotiates sincerely, it will be difficult for it to win the "understanding" from the United States. During the negotiations with the US, Japan did not expect that Trump's "three generals" would actually have internal strife, which made Japan unable to understand the US's demands.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Becent advocated that the United States also make certain concessions and stop when it was better. He once promoted a 90-day tariff buffer period, which was regarded by Japan as a "rational person" who can be talked about;
U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutnik is a full hawk, claiming that "even if the tariffs trigger a recession, it is worth it." U.S. Trade Representative Greer's voice is the least important, but he can stumbling on Japan in other areas of detail.
The negotiation scene once showed absurd scene: "Three senior US officials suspended dialogue with the Japanese side and instead argued with each other", which stunned Ryomasa Akazawa's team. This chaos caused a significant reduction in the probability of Japan reaching an agreement before the G7 summit.
It should be noted that Japan's attempt to sacrifice our country's interests to please the United States is a complete worst-case approach. my country has long pointed out that China will never accept the attempts of some countries to sacrifice trade with China in exchange for US tariff exemption and will resolutely take countermeasures to safeguard their rights and interests.
