Japan, U.S. agree to trade deal worth “billions”

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits President-elect Donald Trump on November 17th (Photo courtesy Japan’s Cabinet Public Relations Office, via Wikimedia Commons.)

On the second day of the G7 meeting being held at Biarritz, France, President Donald Trump announced an in-principle trade deal with Japan.” Both the president of the U.S. and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said this trade deal has been in the works for quite some time.

“This is a tremendous deal for the United States, it’s a tremendous deal for our farmers, and agriculture, ranchers, and also involves other things including e-commerce, so it’s very big and we look forward to it,” President Trump says.

Although the formal agreement hasn’t been drafted, Trump says it’s worth, “billions and billions” in dollars. One thing the president pointed out was that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has agreed to purchase all of the corn that was left behind after China “didn’t do what they said they were going to do.”

The president says the deal will have a formal signing during or close to the 74th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 77) which opens on September 17.

The text of the deal is yet to be written, but all eyes will be on how close this gets U.S. agriculture to CPTPP type tariff levels.  Canadian producers have enjoyed market access advantages over the U.S. into participating Asian nations since the beginning of 2019.

“Canadian wheat and beef producers are just two examples of how Canada has launched itself into the CPTPP and benefitted, so U.S. producers greatly want to get a piece of that action,” says Shaun Haney, founder of RealAgriculture.

A deal with Japan has been on U.S. farmer wanted list since January of 2017 when the President removed the country from the trans pacific partnership based on an election promise to appease U.S. auto workers.

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Categories: News / TPP / Trade / United States