.jpg?20250426')
Japan will emphasise “fairness” in any discussions with the US on exchange rates, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said yesterday, as bilateral trade talks grab global attention in President Donald Trump’s tariff offensive.
Ishiba, in a talk show on public broadcaster NHK, indicated Tokyo could buy more US energy and suggested flexibility on US accusations of non-tariff barriers to the Japanese automobile market.
Trump – who unexpectedly joined the first round of US-Japan talks on Wednesday and touted “big progress” – has indicated he wants the negotiations to include his accusations that Tokyo intentionally weakens its currency to give its exporters an unfair advantage.
Ishiba said specific discussions on currency policy will be made between Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
“We’ll have to deal with this issue from the standpoint of fairness,” Ishiba said, when asked how Japan would respond if the US asked for co-operation in boosting the yen. He did not elaborate.
Japan, which denies manipulating the yen, has over the years typically fought to keep a strong yen from hurting its export-reliant economy, but it last intervened in the foreign-exchange market last year to boost its currency.
Kato plans to visit Washington this week for a meeting of the Group of 20 finance chiefs on the sidelines of the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund. He is widely expected to meet Bessent for bilateral trade talks.
Some analysts say Japan could use its huge US Treasury holdings – the largest in the world at more than $1 trillion – as trade leverage, but Kato this month ruled out using them as a bargaining tool.
“This is something that’s based on trust between the two sides, global economic stability, as well the two countries’ economic stability,” Ishiba said when asked whether Japan would refer to its US debt holdings during the talks.
&uuid=(email))