Japan says it won t sacrifice farm sector for tariff deal after Trump rice complaints

TOKYO – Japan will not sacrifice the agricultural sector as part of its tariff talks with the United States, its top negotiator said on July 1, after President Donald Trump complained that the key Asian ally was not buying American rice.

Mr Trump’s comment, made in a social media post on June 30, comes as Tokyo scrambles to convince the US to scrap a 25 per cent tariff on Japanese cars and a 24 per cent reciprocal tariff on other Japanese imports.

The reciprocal tariff has been paused until July 9, but Japan has yet to secure a trade deal after nearly three months of negotiations.

While the auto sector is Japan’s top employer and exporter, the farm sector has traditionally been an important voting bloc for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party, which faces key Upper House elections on July 20.

“I have repeatedly stated that agriculture is the foundation of the nation,” top trade negotiator and Economy Minister Ryosei Akazawa said during a news conference.

“In negotiations with the United States, our stance remains unchanged: We will not engage in talks that would sacrifice the agricultural sector,” he said, adding that he would continue to negotiate with his US counterparts to protect Japan’s national interests.

Mr Akazawa, who returned from his seventh trip to Washington a few days ago, declined to say whether rice was part of those discussions.

Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social 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.

American rice imports rise

Japan has, in fact, imported historically high volumes of US rice in