The deal will reportedly see the US levy 15% tariff on goods imported from Japan. Donald Trump also said the US would increase exports of rice and vehicles to the East Asian nation.
an attempted distraction from the epstein files, the tariffs are pretty much losing thier effectiveness on MSM as distraction, because hes used so much already.
NPR did a segment on this - we already had a trade agreement in place with Japan that was ironically set up during his first term. That agreement had us paying 1.5% on imports from Japan. We’re now going to pay 10x more.
Conservatives love paying more taxes.
Yeah, good luck with that. No one’s gonna buy our rice or shitty, gas-guzzling cars over there because of this trade war shit, so this is basically just Trump announcing a 15% tax on consumers who want to buy stuff from Japan.
They will probably buy our rice
Rice situation in Japan is pretty dire atm and probably will stay that way through 2026. It’s a staple crop and prices have gone up substantially due to the shortages
Fair point. But our cars? Nah.
Agree, and using the rice situation as leverage is shitty tbh. It’s a crisis and while Japan is a developed nation with a relatively good standard of living for the most part it’s also one with extremely stagnant wages and economic growth, fairly significant wealth inequality, etc.
many Japanese are struggling to get by more than Americans. Though it’s hard to directly compare. The average salary in Japan in far lower than in America (~30k vs ~39k) and wages for equivalent positions are much lower (like a computer programmer who gets paid $80k for an American company might get $50-60k from a Japanese company), but the cost of living is much lower in many ways, rent costs are substantially lower (even a Tokyo apartment is like $500usd/month unless you want something crazy extravagant), robust public transit network making car ownership truly optional, healthcare system that is not ideal but has much more managed costs than the us, etc
That’s probably in part why sanseitō (think japanese maga: anti immigration (in a country that barely allows it), super nationalist (in a country that’s already crazy nationalist), anti vaccination, etc) is seriously picking up steam and just picked up several seats in the upper house, going from 1 seat to 14 at the expense of the LDP and communist party who lost seats. They ran on rhetoric similar to trump, a “silent invasion” of immigrants is “taking over Japan”. It captured their youth, who are frustrated by a lack of meaningful jobs and the reality of an economy that has been stagnant for many decades at this point (arguably caused by boomer policy and refusal to break from tradition) but instead of looking inward at what could’ve been done wrong domestically they are looking for a boogeyman to easily shift blame to. Sound familiar?
The right wing shift is not limited to America unfortunately. AfD, sanseitō, national rally, Lega, Orban and bolsonaro, etc. many of these are picking up quite a bit of steam
We already buy your rice to give away as aid to other countries or emergency stock. No consumer will buy it though.
Tell that to yoshinoya, who has been mixing California rice into their rice for the past year with some locations using entirely American rice, or Matsuya, who have switched to American rice at many locations due to cost. Lawson is also starting to prototype bentos with rice blends. Even if the consumer takes a nationalist approach the invisible hand of capitalism will reject that for profit
And with that there’s data to suggest the consumer doesn’t reject imported rice. Aeon sold the 80/20 blend with US rice and that proved popular enough that they are now selling 4kg bags of 100% california rice due to consumer demand. The 80/20 bags were 10% cheaper, the 100% is likely far more
It is a dangerous game. This is how walmart destroyed American small business. Everyone has ideals and principles until a massive vendor with huge advantage shows up and undercuts everyone in town by 10-30%. Doesn’t matter if the product is inferior. People don’t have money
I stand corrected!
I, however will not buy US rice from a shitty experience I had with it, and the fact that I’d rather not support a shithole run by a president who wants to annex Canada.
Understandable
I use us rice because I live here and in terms of global warming unless there is a shortage and I have no other option it makes the most sense to use California rice
That said Japanese rice is more aromatic and has lower arsenic content so in a perfect world I would use that. However, I do not want to both contribute to the emissions of shipping rice across the globe when there is rice that is good enough plus I don’t want to contribute to taking Japanese rice away from Japan. It appears that a big contributor to the rice shortage is again capitalistic scumbaggery - both in terms of middlemen scalping with shortages occurring and the export market valuing Japanese rice as “premium”. I don’t want to contribute to that just like I won’t buy a marked up concert ticket or game console.
A lot of our cars won’t fit on Japanese roads and inner cities, however, the US already exports quite a bit of rice to Japan. I think the most popular rice used in Sushi is grown in California. That being said, if the market exists, then American automakers will attempt to make model(s) that appeals to Japanese sensibilities. This will probably just result in Toyota manufacturing marginally more in the US only to export the vehicles back to Japan.
Japan govt has already asked their motor US subsidiaries to export their goods back to Japan. Its much more easier for them to make Jp specific modification compared to US-origin manufacturers.
I hadn’t seen this but I’ll look into it. Small dominos.
FYI, that was reported in Jp news flash and the source is internal govt, it maybe not credible enough to publish globaly
Japan, with the best automotive engineering in the world, is going to buy more shitty US made vehicles?
Yeah. Ok.
The best “US made” vehicle I’ve owned was a 2006 Ford Ranger and it was actually just a rebadged Mazda which, go figure, is Japanese.
Yeah, I truly wonder whether the U.S. autos were even consulted on this. Retool domestic factories to make a tiny number of left-hand drive pickups that don’t even fit on Japanese streets? Sounds expensive and pointless. There’s simply no market.
My favorite “American” car I’ve owned was a rebadged Holden manaro. Favorite overall? My Mazda MX-5. The grand Prix GTP was pretty decent though.
Putting fuel in the GTO was a pain. There are a few stations near me that were not very compatible with that stupid rigged solution to US crash standards. plus the lack of trunk space due to the tank being in there kinda sucked.
Lmao I love that you knew exactly what car I was talking about. But yeah that car was so ridiculous that I destroyed a business after they tried to show me “my” fuel filter. To even get to that shit was like a 5 hour procedure. But God, the way that car drove was nothing short of magical. It was like it was connected directly to your brain. It knew exactly what you wanted to do and did it. The Mazda MX-5 is exactly the same way, but easier to push to its limits. It’s less like a robotic companion attached to your brain, and more of a best friend you’ve grown up together your whole life.
Yeah but tariffs are the skeleton key for economics. It’s the solution to everything.
Taxes are the prerogative of Congress not executive. This is a continuation of decades of usurping power from the legislative to centralizing under executive that illustrates why both US political parties entail right wing politics.
This isn’t a deal, it’s extortion. Fuck the Orange Jackass.
We need to stop all reporting of Trump deals until they are in writing. Anyone notice that Coke never confirmed the sugar thing? The UK tariff framework isn’t anything more than a handshake. The healthcare plan is just two weeks away. We have always been to war with Eastasia.
Nothing is real until it is signed. He gets the bump by announcing them and then nothing happens and he isn’t held accountable.
Even when it is signed, it’s not real. He tore up the trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that HE implemented.
I thought about covering the kind of situation but decided to keep it simple. But you are correct.
Remember. TACO.
Let’s see how long this lasts… ⏲️
Till tomorrow when they announce that it is a “framework” of a deal.
In a month he’ll blame Biden for this terrible 15% trade deal with Japan and start the whole thing over.
My stocks here in Japan shot up the other day, which is weird because we still have tariffs — just less than what he had originally proposed. We’ll see how long this “deal” lasts.
I’ve just been buying the dips and it seems like it’s working out. I just hope I receive enough dividends to allow me to keep buying domestic rice.
So, if good sense fails me not: japanese goods imported into the US will have a 15% markup at border…
Right.
What makes me morbidly curious is what Japan waved in return of that “agreement”.
I’d more quickly turn my back on them and let them levy whatever tariffs on my nation’s goods they see fit and enter “negotiations”. Yes, it would be painful in the short term for my country but it would be worth it.
