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Japanese commerce negotiators making an attempt to spare their nation from Donald Trump’s tariffs are making ready to do battle over a problem the place neither aspect can simply again down: a automobile security check that doesn’t exist.
Trump has perplexed officers in Tokyo with a reference to a Japanese “bowling-ball” check — dropping a bowling ball on to a automobile and failing any automobile if its bonnet dents below the impression.
The US president first referred to the check in 2018. “They take a bowling ball from 20 ft up within the air they usually drop it on the hood of the automobile. And if the hood dents, then the automobile doesn’t qualify,” he stated. “It’s horrible, the best way we’re handled.”
On Sunday he once more cited the check on his Fact Social platform for instance of “protecting technical requirements”.
Japan doesn’t perform such assessments on its automobiles, though one carried out within the nation and elsewhere does entail hitting a automobile with a rounded object at a velocity of 35kph, to simulate an impression with a pedestrian. Within the check, a dent within the bonnet sometimes signifies good shock absorption and a doubtlessly much less lethal impression.
It’s a part of a UN-formulated security regime that intently resembles Europe’s and places new automobile fashions via assessments on 43 gadgets. The US has its personal proprietary automobile security testing regime that diverges from UN requirements.
Japan has tons at stake within the commerce negotiations with the US, which Tokyo’s chief negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, will resume in Washington subsequent week. Trump has threatened its export-oriented economic system with 24 per cent “reciprocal tariffs” on prime of levies on automobiles and metals, and has beforehand prompt that automobiles will likely be excessive on the agenda.
“94 per cent of the automobiles in Japan are made in Japan. Toyota sells a million international made vehicles into the USA and Common Motors sells virtually none,” stated Trump on the day that reciprocal tariffs have been introduced in early April.
US complaints about imbalances with Japan in automobile exports are usually not new. “There are lots of Japanese automobiles in America. I wish to see extra American automobiles in Japan, as effectively,” Barack Obama stated on a go to to Japan as president in 2015.
Some US manufacturers similar to Jeep and Tesla have made inroads in Japan however 2024 fiscal yr gross sales of as much as 17,207 items for US manufacturers have been a small fraction of the 4.57mn passenger automobiles bought in Japan, in accordance with official information.
Some US carmakers admit that has little to do with non-tariff boundaries.
“There are little quirks however they’re remnants of a paperwork of a system that has been altering slowly. Are they non tariff boundaries? Sure, they’re because it takes extra money and time to conform,” stated Pontus Häggström, who led Fiat Chrysler in Japan for greater than a decade and is now regional director of Alpine, Renault’s sports activities automobile model.
“Is that this the rationale why US automobiles are usually not promoting in Japan? The reply is totally not.”
One senior promoting government in Tokyo, who labored on advertising and marketing US automobile manufacturers in Tokyo through the Nineties and early 2000s, stated promoting American automobiles to Japan was a problem as a result of they’re “too large, eat an excessive amount of fuel, and lack the little design particulars that the client right here appears to be like for”.
Whereas Japan stays searching for compromises which may attraction to Trump, any compromise on security requirements may not be accepted by prime minister Shigeru Ishiba, who’s making an attempt to shore up his recognition and has repeatedly referred to Trump’s tariffs as having precipitated a “nationwide disaster”.
“Be it automobiles or agricultural merchandise, we is not going to do something that may have an effect on security,” he informed a parliamentary session this week.
However Japan might need floor to cede on different non-tariff boundaries for imported autos, together with subsidies that favour native producers similar to Toyota and Japan’s distinctive fast-charging requirements for electrical autos, in accordance with auto executives.
“If Japan needs to supply one thing, then they will do it on the EV entrance as there are some boundaries there,” stated Ludwig Kanzler, chief government of Hanegi Options, a consulting agency that has suggested South Korea’s Hyundai on market entry to Japan.
