TOKYO: Japan will not sacrifice the agricultural sector as part of its tariff negotiations with the United States, its top government spokesperson said on Tuesday (July 1), after President Donald Trump complained that its ally was not importing American rice.
Trump wrote in a social media post that Japan's reluctance to import American-grown rice was a sign that countries have become "spoiled with respect to the United States of America."
"I have great respect for Japan, they won't take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage," he wrote on Truth Social.
Japan has been grappling with a doubling in rice prices due partly to a weather-driven poor-quality harvest in 2023 that caused a shortage last year. The government has released almost its entire stock of emergency rice since March in an effort to bring prices down.
"We are not thinking about doing anything that would sacrifice the farm sector," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a press conference.
He, as well as farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi, declined to comment directly on Trump's post. Koizumi told a separate press conference that his ministry would continue to work with various ministries towards maximising Japan's national interests.
Under a "minimum access" agreement within the World Trade Organisation, Japan has an 770,000-tonne tariff-free import quota for rice, of which up to 100,000 tonnes is for staple rice. Beyond this, rice imports are subject to a levy of 341 yen (US$2.37) per kilogramme.
To continue in its efforts to lower domestic prices, the government had brought forward a tender for the first 30,000 tonnes of tariff-free staple rice imports earmarked for this year earlier than the usual auction in September.
Results of that tender, held on June 27, showed applications for 81,853 tonnes, or nearly three times as much as was auctioned. Of the total tendered, 25,541 tonnes was from the US, followed by 1,500 tonnes from Australia and 708 tonnes from Thailand. - Reuters
