Don't look at Japan's jumping feet now calling on all countries not to participate in China's 1993 military parade. In fact, Japan has been learning from China in recent years. To what extent? Even dare to be positive and hard with the United States!
On August 6th, Japanese Minister of Economic Regeneration Ryosei Akazawa, who was visiting the United States, told reporters that the tariffs imposed by the United States on Japan were inconsistent with the US-Japan agreement reached in July. Subsequently, on August 13th, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially issued a global notice asking the US to correct the tariff issue.
Why did Japan, which has always been weak in front of the United States, suddenly become tough? Is the attitude of doing it if you don't accept it really learned from China?
A bad check worth 550 billion
Since the implementation of the new reciprocal tariffs, the Trump administration has thrown out a three-pronged tariff system that has weighed on Japan's auto industry like three mountains: a 10% base tax, a 24% retaliatory tariff, and a special 25% tariff on automobiles. The original threat from the White House was straightforward. It was to use this last item to completely lock down the life infra of Japanese cars.
Faced with the extreme pressure from the United States, Japan has thrown out a figure enough to make anyone look askance-a framework agreement on investment in the United States totaling 550 billion dollars. That number sounds like a shot in the arm, enough for Trump to chant "get auto workers back to work" to voters at political rallies in Michigan.
But the devil behind the numbers, hidden in the details. The implementation of this agreement is cleverly linked directly to the U.S. tariff policy. More importantly, the valve of this huge amount of money is in the hands of the Bank of Japan International Cooperation.
Is this a promise or a bargaining chip? The first deposit paid by Hitachi gave the answer: a mere $30 million. This figure only accounts for 0.005% of the total commitment of 550 billion yuan. It is not so much an investment as an "admission ticket", a symbolic ticket to sit at the table.
The Japanese representative said more openly: as long as the U.S. keeps its promise, the actual investment ratio of the 500 billion can immediately rise to 3%. In other words, the initiative is in me, see your performance. This money becomes a leverage that can be stretched, not a contract nailed on a board.
The deeper layout is hidden in the vague terms of the agreement. For example, the principle of profit distribution, which the Japanese cabinet quietly revised to be divided according to the proportion of investment and risk, completely overturned the US dream of "9-1 share". There are also loan guarantees, which are also linked to project threats and risk assessments. There is no fixed commitment at all.
Japan didn't intend to sign a detailed written text from the beginning. What they wanted was this kind of interpretation space, and this "ambiguous art" soon played a demonstration effect.
The European Union followed closely behind, and also threw out a $600 billion investment commitment to the United States, which was also vague; South Korea, on the other hand, directly cited Japanese precedents in subsequent chip negotiations and refused to make any written guarantees.
Actors on stage and abacuses off stage
This negotiation on tariffs between the United States and Japan is full of strong performance colors. In front of the stage, it is the shouting from a distance of politicians from both sides and the well-designed "handshake and make peace"; Behind the stage, it is the emergency layout of their respective industries and the secret overweight of policies.
Shigeru Ishiba's speech on Fuji TV was fiery, perfectly responding to the expectations of the domestic public and providing a solid foundation for the tough stance of the negotiating team. When the news of the agreement was reached, Toyota's share price rose 5.2% in response, and the capital markets applauded the "political show" in the most direct way.
However, the carnival of the market was short-lived, and people soon discovered that the effective date of the tariff of this agreement was deliberately left blank. The implementation rules subsequently issued by the United States are quite different from the previously agreed scope of application. Where is this an agreement, it is clearly a one-man show expressed by each other.
Trump is drawing a beautiful blueprint for the recovery of the auto assembly line in Detroit, but the reality is that the local production line is still silent. In sharp contrast to this uproar is the silent self-protection actions of Japanese companies. At the same time, Japan's trade insurance agencies began to provide tariff risk subsidies to domestic companies, using real money to build firewalls.
Both sides are "tailoring" the negotiation results for domestic audiences. Officials from Japan's Defense Ministry privately revealed that the so-called "additional arms purchases" are just a repackaging of existing procurement plans and do not have a single new budget. Faced with the 770,000 tons of rice import quota requested by the United States, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry lightly explained: "This is just the volume of three medium-sized cargo ships," and the actual increase is negligible.
Forced countermeasures
When the clash of words and the economic twist fall into an impasse, the real killer shell emerges, and what Japan holds is a financial nuclear weapon that transcends the tariffs itself.
As one of the largest overseas holders of U.S. government bonds, Japan holds about $1.13 trillion in U.S. debt, the Damocles sword hanging over the U.S. dollar market.
The news came, the market shook. Though Finance Minister Kato Zhejiang responded publicly, saying that this was only a normal operation based on market liquidity demand, denying it as a negotiating tool, this statement of "there is no silver there three hundred and two" instead highlighted the strong deterrence behind it. Who knows, at the time, the Trump administration was facing the pressure of six trillion dollars of due state debt.
A real turning point has taken place recently, with the U.S. Treasury launching a raid on August 7, unilaterally revising the policy, reducing the nominal car tariffs to 15 percent, interpreted as “an additional 15 percent increase on the original basis.”
This word game caused the actual tariff of Japanese cars to soar to an appalling 42.5% in an instant. This is the last attempt of the US to break the ambiguity and forcibly fulfill its interests. However, they underestimate the determination of their opponents.
Just on a flight to Washington, Japanese negotiating representative赤泽亮 made a crucial decision. he did not take into account the memorandum signed by the U.S. request to submit, but instead brought out the Japanese Ministry of Economic Industry's long drafted countermeasures document.
conclusion
Since China's successful tariff counter-measures against the United States, Japan has seen a brand-new way out. The balance of this contest is no longer controlled by politicians in Washington. When farmers in the Midwest of the United States anxiously put pressure on the White House because of the backlog of corn, eager to get orders from Japan, the winner of this trade war has actually been revealed.
Japan's all-round counterattack expanded the battlefield infinitely from the negotiating table to the agricultural hinterland of the United States and the global financial market. Now, is it time for Trump and his team to reconsider how to interact with their hardcore allies?
Source of information:
Guangming.com 2025-08-07 "Add another 15%?" "The US tariff announcement is inconsistent with the Japan-US agreement"! The Japanese side asks the US side to explain and correct "
Guangming.com 2025-08-28 Japanese media: Senior Japanese officials urgently cancel visit to the United States due to failure to negotiate a tariff agreement between the United States and Japan