When the United States President Donald Trump announced his latest tariff on steel and aluminum this week, he insisted that “no exemption, no exception”.
Washington’s closest colleagues in the Asia-Pacific are expecting that they will be able to change the mind of the Mercurial US President.
Japan, South Korea and Australia, the American treaty with export-revalt economies, has all confirmed that they are demanding exemption from Trump’s 25 percent of tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Trump has promised to follow measures against imported steel and aluminum with extensive mutual tariffs, which may potentially cover a comprehensive range of goods on countries applying Levy on American exports on American exports on Thursday.
“We will take necessary measures, including advocating for exemption to the United States, while closely monitors any possible impact on the Japanese economy,” Prime Minister Shigru Ishiba, who met Trump in Washington last week, on Wednesday. Told Parliament.
Trump is likely to include commitments to increase American imports in Tokyo’s efforts to shed.
The US trade deficit with Japan was around $ 70BN last year, mostly as a result of exports by Japanese vehicle manufacturers such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan.
Asia head of Oxford Economics, Shigato Nagai, said that Tokyo is likely to highlight its importance as an ally in facing China in the region. ,
“Japan enjoys a large business surplus with the US for machinery, which encourages the US to impose tariffs,” Nagai told Al Jazira.
“At the same time, the technical advantage of Japanese machinery such as semiconductor equipment and materials will be difficult to find options quickly.”
After their conversation at the White House on Friday, Trump and Ishiba issued a joint statement that accepted the Republican agenda to promote the domestic industry, “by highlighting the United States’s cheap and reliable energy and natural resources. The pledge to strengthen energy security is also included.
At the same time, ISIBA impressed Trump that Japan has been the largest foreign investor in the US for the last five years and announced plans for $ 1 trillion in further investments, including artificial intelligence.
“My understanding is that this [tariff exemptions] Rayota Abe, an economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), told Al Jazira.
“The adverse effects on the US economy will not be small, the relationship between the two should be severely damaged. And this will not be the best option for America either. ,
Although the shape of policy priorities of his second administration is still coming out, Trump has taken his reputation to be fond of a deal with him from his first term.
Despite emphasizing that his tariffs would apply to all countries, Trump almost immediately left the door open for an exception to Australia, saying that he would give “great ideas” for a discount.
“We have a surplus with Australia, one of some,” Trump said.
Trump’s senior consultant for trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro, the next day poured cold water on those expectations, claiming that Australia was “killing the US aluminum market”.
Australia’s aluminum exports increased to around 269,000 tonnes in 2019 after Trump first entered the office after Trump entered the office for the first time.
Since then, exports have raised a lot of upsurge, coming at 83,000 tonnes in 2024, which is below 210,000 last year.
“Overall, the second Trump administration is working more brutally and chaotic than the first, so Japan – and Australia and NATO/European allies [European Union] Associate – will continue to face a highly unstable and difficult diplomatic situation, which Craig Mark, an assistant lecturer at Economics at Hosie University, Tokyo, said, “Craig Mark told Al Jazeera.
During his first term, Trump did not adopt a similar approach to repetitive to friendly countries and colleagues.
In 2018, his administration exempted Australia from steel and aluminum tariffs and gave South Korea a duty-free steel quota of up to 2.63 million tonnes.
But his administration did not expand such relief to Japan.
Former US President Joe Biden’s administration reduced tariffs on Japanese steel in 2022, who agreed to allow 1.25 million metric tonnes of steel to enter the US every year every year while placing tariffs on aluminum. .
Professor Mark of Hosi University said, “First the experience of Trump administration shows how Japan can again achieve the goal of American tariff again, despite all its diplomatic efforts,” Professor Mark of Hosie University said that Japanese Prime Minister said Shinzo Abe said that the great “great” went to “Length to build a close personal relationship with Trump.
While Trump has a “more expander approach about its remit” than his first term, and the tariff uses a really valuable tool that can be used to solve the innumerable problems “, His administration’s overriding characteristic is uncertainty, said Debora Elms, head of the trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore.
Elms said she was not sure that Trump himself would be able to answer about his policy direction or goals, “or if they did so, their answers would be the same as what he can say in another hour or day or week. Are”.
Elms told Al Jazeera, “As he is a driving trade policy – at the moment, it is a lack of clarity.”
