Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio late Saturday on the sidelines of a multilateral security conference in Germany, with the top Japanese diplomat requesting that Tokyo be excluded from a series of tariffs announced by President Donald Trump.
Iwaya, who held brief talks with Rubio during the Munich Security Conference in the German city, asked his U.S. counterpart that Japan be exempted from 25% steel and aluminum tariffs and reciprocal tariffs that the Trump administration is considering.
The foreign minister also said that he had broached the issue of Trump’s planned tariffs on automobiles imported to the U.S. — a threat that would put Japanese carmakers firmly within the president’s crosshairs. Trump announced the auto tariffs on Friday — adding that they are set to take effect on April 2 — but did not identify which nations would be targeted.
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