Abe Hopes for Continued “Win-Win” Japan-U.S. Trade Ties

September 26, 2018

New York- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in an address to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, expressed his hope that Japan and the United States will maintain their "win-win" trade relationship.

With U.S. President Donald Trump frustrated at the massive U.S. trade deficit with Japan, Abe listed concrete figures to demonstrate Japan's contribution to the U.S. economy. Japan's direct investment has created some 856,000 jobs in the United States and 3.77 million Japanese vehicles are manufactured annually in the United States, compared with 1.74 million units exported from Japan to the country, he said.

"This is a win-win situation at its finest. I intend for Japan and the United States to continue this kind of relationship between us," Abe said, speaking in Japanese.

His remark was apparently intended to urge Trump to shelve his country's planned additional import duties on automobiles.

Ahead of his talks with Trump on Wednesday, where trade issues are expected to be high on the agenda and Trump may increase pressure on Japan, Abe used his U.N. address to seek a better understanding of Japan's position.

Noting that Japan achieved a remarkable reconstruction after the end of World War II under the free trade system, Abe said Japan "reaped the greatest benefits of all" under the system.

"Japan has now taken on the mission of imparting to the world the benefits of trade," he said, warning against protectionism.

Pointing to the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership free trade agreement among 16 Asia-Pacific economies as one of multilateral trade frameworks, Abe expressed his resolve to make "all-out efforts" toward negotiations on the RCEP.

Elsewhere in his address, Abe said, "North Korea is now at a crossroads at which it will either seize, or fail to seize, the historic opportunity it was afforded," urging it to take actions to resolve its abduction, nuclear and missile issues.

On the decades-old issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals, Abe said, "I am also ready to break the shell of mutual distrust with North Korea, get off to a new start, and meet face to face" with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The Japanese prime minister refrained from using the word "pressure" that he stressed in his address last year.

Referring to Japan's relations with Russia, Abe reiterated Japan's stance, saying, "We must resolve the territorial issue that lie between Japan and Russia and conclude a peace treaty between our two countries."

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed that the two countries sign a peace treaty by the end of this year without any preconditions to formally end their wartime hostilities.

The territorial issue, which concerns four northwestern Pacific islands seized from Japan by Soviet troops in the closing days of the war, has prevented the two countries from signing a WWII peace treaty. Jiji Press