Japan Auto Trade ‘Unfair’, Could Buy More US Oil, Trump Tells Fox News

Tokyo is scrambling to find ways to get Washington to exempt Japan’s automakers from 25% automobile industry-specific tariffs, which are hurting the country’s manufacturing sector. Japan also faces a 24% so-called reciprocal tariff rate starting on July 9 unless it can negotiate a deal.

“They won’t take our cars, and yet we take millions and millions of their cars into the United States. It’s not fair, and I explained that to Japan, and they understand it,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo”.

“And we have a big deficit with Japan, and they understand that too. Now we have oil. They could take a lot of oil, they could take a lot of other things.”

The automobile sector accounted for about 28% of the total 21 trillion yen ($145 billion) worth of goods Japan exported to the U.S. last year.

(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Stephen Coates)