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Japanese commerce negotiators attempting to spare their nation from Donald Trump’s tariffs are making ready to do battle over a difficulty the place neither aspect 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 feet up in the air and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn’t qualify,” he mentioned. “It’s horrible, the way we’re treated.”
On Sunday he once more cited the take a look at on his Fact Social platform for example of “protective technical standards”.
Japan doesn’t perform such exams on its automobiles, 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 probably much less lethal impression.
It’s a part of a UN-formulated security regime that intently resembles Europe’s and places new automobile fashions by means of exams 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 economic system with 24 per cent “reciprocal tariffs” on prime of levies on automobiles and metals, and has beforehand prompt that automobiles shall be excessive on the agenda.
“94 per cent of the cars in Japan are made in Japan. Toyota sells one million foreign made automobiles into the United States and General Motors sells almost none,” mentioned Trump on the day that reciprocal tariffs have been introduced in early April.
US complaints about imbalances with Japan in automobile exports are usually not new. “There are many Japanese cars in America. I want to see more American cars in Japan, as well,” Barack Obama mentioned on a go to to Japan as president in 2015.
Some US manufacturers resembling Jeep and Tesla have made inroads in Japan however 2024 fiscal 12 months gross sales of as much as 17,207 models for US manufacturers have been a fraction of the 4.57mn passenger automobiles offered in Japan, in accordance with official knowledge.
Some US carmakers admit that has little to do with non-tariff boundaries.
“There are little quirks but they are remnants of a bureaucracy of a system that has been changing slowly. Are they non tariff barriers? Yes, they are as it takes more time and money to comply,” mentioned 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 this the reason why US cars are not selling in Japan? The answer is completely not.”
One senior promoting government in Tokyo, who labored on advertising and marketing US automobile manufacturers in Tokyo in the course of the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, mentioned promoting American automobiles to Japan was a problem as a result of they’re “too big, consume too much gas, and lack the little design details that the customer here looks for”.
Whereas Japan stays searching for compromises that may attraction to Trump, any compromise on security requirements may not be accepted by prime minister Shigeru Ishiba, who’s attempting to shore up his reputation and has repeatedly referred to Trump’s tariffs as having precipitated a “national crisis”.
“Be it cars or agricultural products, we will not do anything that will affect safety,” he instructed a parliamentary session this week.
However Japan might need floor to cede on different non-tariff boundaries for imported automobiles, together with subsidies that favour native producers resembling Toyota and Japan’s distinctive fast-charging requirements for electrical automobiles, in accordance with auto executives.
“If Japan wants to offer something, then they can do it on the EV front as there are some barriers there,” mentioned Ludwig Kanzler, chief government of Hanegi Options, a consulting agency that has suggested South Korea’s Hyundai on market entry to Japan.
