Japan-U.S. Trade Talks Making Progress: U.S. Official

Jiji Press

13:07 JST, July 3, 2025

Washington (Jiji Press)—The United States and Japan are making progress in trade negotiations, and some details may be announced soon, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender said on a television program aired by U.S. broadcaster CNBC on Wednesday.

“We continue to make good progress with them (Japan), and hope to have an announcement shortly on the progress that we have made,” Faulkender said.

The remark came after U.S. President Donald Trump said the previous day that Washington may impose a reciprocal tariff of 30 pct to 35 pct on Japan, apparently ramping up pressure to extract concessions.

Faulkender said that the U.S. government will announce “a number of deals” before the July 9 deadline for its reciprocal levies to return to higher levels. Meanwhile, he said that Washington will announce next week tariff rates for trading partners with which negotiations have not progressed. He did not mention specific countries.

The official said that nontariff barriers have been a key focal point in negotiations, saying that progress depends on “the willingness of…countries to put things that heretofore had been off the table” in talks.

“The fact that we are seeing an opening up of markets and a willingness to address markets that previously the U.S. manufacturers and U.S. farmers were not able to sell into, that’s what’s really driving our willingness to then offset that” from reciprocal tariff rates, he said.

Washington announced a trade deal with Vietnam on Wednesday, and is also negotiating with the European Union, China and others ahead of July 9.

Regarding the issue of Chinese export curbs on rare earths, a sticking point in negotiations with Beijing, Faulkender said that “some progress has been made” but added that the United States is “calling upon China to accelerate access to those rare earths.”