President Donald Trump said Wednesday during a second day of talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he wants to see «free, fair and reciprocal trade» between the two countries and a whittling away of the trade deficit. «We have a very big deficit, and we’re going to
President Donald Trump said Wednesday during a second day of talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he wants to see «free, fair and reciprocal trade» between the two countries and a whittling away of the trade deficit.
«We have a very big deficit, and we’re going to weed that down and hopefully get a balance at some point in the not-too-distant future,» Trump said. The U. S. trade deficit with Japan last year was $56.1 billion, according to the U. S. Department of Commerce.
«As the prime minister knows, they have done very well with the United States. We have a very big deficit,» Trump said as the two leaders and their delegations sat across the table from each other at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida.
Insisting the «relationship is a very good one,» Trump nonetheless broke with the usual diplomatic niceties, urging Abe do more to make trade «free, fair and reciprocal.»
«We have a massive deficit with Japan,» he said, pointing to passenger plane and fighter jet orders that could plug the gap before railing about unfair practices.
«The word ‘reciprocal’ is that when you have a car come in, we charge you a tax. When we have a car go through Japan, which aren’t allowed to go there, we have to take down the barriers and we have to pay the same tax,» Trump said.
«But that goes for other countries too,» he said, vowing to «weed» the deficit down.
