President Trump is planning on opening a new front in his ongoing trade war: Japan. The president said Thursday he wants to renegotiate trade policy with them and expects that they won’t be happy with his opening offer.
“Mr. Trump described his good relations with the Japanese leadership but then added: ‘Of course that will end as soon as I tell them how much they have to pay,'” Wall Street Journal columnist James Freeman wrote Thursday, recounting a personal call he received from the president. Freeman had offered qualified praise for Trump’s policies in a TV appearance earlier in the day.
Trump apparently did not elaborate on what he meant by that. However, the president has previously expressed anger with the longtime U.S. ally’s policies regarding imports of U.S. cars and beef and threatened to place tariffs of 25 percent on Japanese car imports. He has nevertheless refrained from acting thus far, in part because Japan is needed as a counterweight in the Pacific region, where Trump is engaged in a dogged trade fight with China. Thursday’s comments suggest that relationship might turn more antagonistic.
[Related: Japan joins U.S. allies blasting Trump’s auto tariff proposal]
The U.S. currently has a $40 billion trade deficit with Japan.
The communication lines between the countries have at least been open. Trump has met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe eight times, more than with any other world leader, and had more than two dozen phone conversations with him, according to press accounts.
