U.S.-Japan Trade Deal Highlights
During a Daily Caller Live event on Thursday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick talked about the historic U.S.-Japan trade agreement he helped negotiate.
President Donald Trump shared on Truth Social that Japan has committed to investing $550 billion in the U.S. Lutnick was at the event, presented by the American Beverage Association, discussing the deal’s importance.
“When I say it’s historic, I mean it’s completely beyond anything that’s ever been done,” Lutnick said in conversation with Daily Caller editor in chief Dylan Housman.
Japan faced a 25 percent tariff that was challenging for its auto industry. Lutnick mentioned that this unprecedented deal was something he had conceived back in January and had been pushing Trump about for months.
According to Lutnick, Japan agreed to finance “any project for national security or that’s significant to Donald Trump in the U.S.”
The concept involves Japan getting a 10 percent return on its investment, while the U.S. retains 90 percent of the profits from the businesses Japan invests in. “This isn’t just Toyota investing; this is the Japanese government saying they will finance at their cost,” he noted.
In return for this deal, the U.S. reduced tariffs on Japan from 25 to 15 percent.
“So they’ll still pay 15 percent, and we pay zero—they provided us $550 billion,” he explained.
Lutnick gave an example of potential projects, like addressing China’s dominance in generic pharmaceutical production.
“We don’t produce generic pharmaceuticals anymore. They’re mainly made in China. Think about that—our antibiotics come from China? That’s somewhat…,” he paused.
“Not safe,” Housman interjected.
“Exactly. ‘Not safe.’ I love that word. If you hear me use it often, you know where it’s from,” Lutnick replied.
He further illustrated, “So we tell the Japanese government, ‘we want to create generic pharmaceuticals; here’s the project, it’ll cost $15 billion.’ They fund it, we establish the pharmaceutical production here, and when it starts generating profit, we divide it 90% for American taxpayers, 10% for Japan.”
