Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and U.S. President Donald Trump are arranging to hold telephone talks later Thursday, Japanese government sources said.
The move comes as Japan and the United States are arranging a fourth round of talks over Trump’s tariffs in Washington on Friday, with Japan’s top tariff negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, known as a close aide to Ishiba, expected to meet with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the point man for the negotiations.
In their previous telephone talks just a week ago, Ishiba and Trump agreed that they would explore a face-to-face meeting on the occasion of the Group of Seven leaders’ summit to be held in mid-June in Canada.
Ishiba has said the meeting would become a “milestone” in ongoing bilateral tariff talks, though he has maintained that Japan will not budge on its stance of demanding that higher import duties on everything from cars to steel and aluminum be removed.
Despite a three-month pause, the United States still imposes a 10 percent baseline “reciprocal” tariff on Japanese products.
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