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Japanese commerce negotiators attempting to spare their nation from Donald Trump’s tariffs are getting ready to do battle over a difficulty the place neither facet can simply again down: a automobile security take a look at that doesn’t exist.
Trump has perplexed officers in Tokyo with a reference to a Japanese “bowling-ball” take a look at — dropping a bowling ball on to a automobile and failing any automobile if its bonnet dents below the impression.
The US president first referred to the take a look at in 2018. “They take a bowling ball from 20 ft up within the air and so they drop it on the hood of the automobile. And if the hood dents, then the automobile doesn’t qualify,” he stated. “It’s horrible, the best way we’re handled.”
On Sunday he once more cited the take a look at on his Reality Social platform for instance of “protecting technical requirements”.
Japan doesn’t perform such assessments on its vehicles, though one carried out within the nation and elsewhere does entail hitting a automobile with a rounded object at a pace of 35kph, to simulate an impression with a pedestrian. Within the take a look at, a dent within the bonnet sometimes signifies good shock absorption and a doubtlessly much less lethal impression.
It’s a part of a UN-formulated security regime that carefully resembles Europe’s and places new automobile fashions by means of assessments on 43 objects. The US has its personal proprietary automobile security testing regime that diverges from UN requirements.
Japan has tons at stake within the commerce negotiations with the US, which Tokyo’s chief negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, will resume in Washington subsequent week. Trump has threatened its export-oriented financial system with 24 per cent “reciprocal tariffs” on high of levies on vehicles and metals, and has beforehand recommended that vehicles can be excessive on the agenda.
“94 per cent of the vehicles in Japan are made in Japan. Toyota sells a million overseas made vehicles into the US and Common Motors sells nearly none,” stated Trump on the day that reciprocal tariffs had been introduced in early April.
US complaints about imbalances with Japan in automobile exports are usually not new. “There are lots of Japanese vehicles in America. I need to see extra American vehicles in Japan, as effectively,” Barack Obama stated on a go to to Japan as president in 2015.
Some US manufacturers equivalent to Jeep and Tesla have made inroads in Japan however 2024 fiscal yr gross sales of as much as 17,207 models for US manufacturers had been a fraction of the 4.57mn passenger vehicles offered in Japan, in line with official knowledge.
Some US carmakers admit that has little to do with non-tariff obstacles.
“There are little quirks however they’re remnants of a paperwork of a system that has been altering slowly. Are they non tariff obstacles? Sure, they’re because it takes extra money and time to conform,” stated Pontus Häggström, who led Fiat Chrysler in Japan for greater than a decade and is now regional director of Alpine, Renault’s sports activities automobile model.
“Is that this the explanation why US vehicles are usually not promoting in Japan? The reply is totally not.”
One senior promoting govt in Tokyo, who labored on advertising and marketing US automobile manufacturers in Tokyo throughout the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, stated promoting American vehicles to Japan was a problem as a result of they’re “too large, devour an excessive amount of fuel, and lack the little design particulars that the shopper right here seems for”.
Whereas Japan stays seeking compromises that may enchantment to Trump, any compromise on security requirements may not be accepted by prime minister Shigeru Ishiba, who’s attempting to shore up his recognition and has repeatedly referred to Trump’s tariffs as having precipitated a “nationwide disaster”.
“Be it vehicles or agricultural merchandise, we won’t do something that can have an effect on security,” he advised a parliamentary session this week.
However Japan may need floor to cede on different non-tariff obstacles for imported automobiles, together with subsidies that favour native producers equivalent to Toyota and Japan’s distinctive fast-charging requirements for electrical automobiles, in line with auto executives.
“If Japan needs to supply one thing, then they will do it on the EV entrance as there are some obstacles there,” stated Ludwig Kanzler, chief govt of Hanegi Options, a consulting agency that has suggested South Korea’s Hyundai on market entry to Japan.
