Japan’s Aso pushes back against US pressure for bilateral trade deal

Friday, 21 April 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: Japan has less room to compromise with the United States under a bilateral trade deal than under a multilateral agreement like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), its deputy prime minister said, taking a swipe at US attempts to directly pressure Tokyo into opening up heavily-protected markets like agriculture.

Taro Aso, who heads Japan for a newly-created bilateral economic dialogue with the United States, said that under TPP, Japan was able to accede to more US demands as it could make up for the losses through agreements with other countries. “In a bilateral deal, you can’t do that. You can’t get back what you lose from a compromise with the United States,” Aso said in a seminar at Columbia University on Wednesday.

Aso’s comments underscore Japan’s hopes of avoiding a bilateral free-trade agreement (FTA) with the United States after US President Donald Trump abandoned the 12-nation TPP backed by his predecessor Barack Obama and Japanese premier Shinzo Abe.

Tokyo fears a two-way agreement would expose it to stronger US pressure to open up politically-sensitive markets like agriculture and beef.

After the first round of talks in Tokyo on Tuesday, Japan and the United States remained at logger-heads on how to frame the bilateral economic dialogue.

The Trump administration has signalled its intention to use the dialogue to push for a two-way trade deal, while Japan wants to broaden the agenda to add less-thorny issues like infrastructure investment.

Vice President Mike Pence, who headed the US delegation, said his administration hopes the bilateral dialogue could lead to future negotiations on a FTA.