Day 291: ‘Great Negotiator’ Trump Didn’t Even Attempt to Broker Trade Deal With Japan During Trip

Donald Trump’s stay in Japan is wrapping up later today. Despite blustery rhetoric about altering a trade deficit that sits around $68 billion, Trump — the “great negotiator” — failed to even attempt to broker any real trade deal with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Trump gave speeches where he urged the Japanese to buy American-made weapons and to move more car manufacturing plants to the United States, but he didn’t actually try to work out a framework for anything.

One major problem for Abe is that he’s not sure what exactly the U.S. wants, according to Hiroyuki Kishi, a professor at Keio University and former trade ministry bureaucrat. On autos, for example, Japanese officials argue the market isn’t closed to American cars — consumers just don’t want to buy them.

“Trump is saying these things because he believes them and they are among his pledges,” Kishi said. “Looking at the actual reasons and what should be done would take negotiations. I don’t know whether we can actually reach that stage. Just talking generalities won’t change anything.”

As Bloomberg continues, one of the biggest obstacles is that Trump has already shot himself in the foot on the trade issue.

But Abe hasn’t forgotten that it was Trump who pulled out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, a move the U.S. president once again defended Monday. Abe spent significant political capital to back the deal, particularly among farmers who don’t want to see tariffs on agriculture lowered. Japanese officials also say the TPP would’ve helped narrow the trade gap.

Japan hasn’t ruled out the sort of bilateral partnership with the U.S. that Trump seeks, but is spending most of its energy on a process known as “TPP 11” — an attempt to keep the framework intact without the U.S. Abe is also reluctant to put Japan’s highly protected agriculture sector further at risk in a bilateral deal.

So while Trump played golf, fed some koi and attended state dinners, he failed to do anything tangible toward one of his alleged main goals.

291 days in, 1171 to go

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