Economic Cooperation with US

While enhancing bilateral security cooperation, the leaders of Japan and the United States agreed on the measures for economic coordination in various area. Those measures were designed for economic security to maintain the productivity of industries. Their common target to deal with was China.

The Joint Leader’s Statement delivered by Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, and US President, Joe Biden, describes the goal of their economic cooperation. “The United States and Japan aim to maximally align our economic, technology, and related strategies to advance innovation, strengthen our industrial bases, promote resilient and reliable supply chains, and build the strategic emerging industries of the future,” says the statement.

 

They welcomed investment of private sectors, raising some names of company, to which they would focus on. The statement included Microsoft’s $2.9 billion investments in Japan on AI and cloud infrastructure and Toyota’s additional $8 billion battery production investment for $13.9 billion investment in North Carolina. Japan emphasized its firm contribution to US economy, saying that it was the top foreign investor in US with nearly $800 billion and that the Japanese companies employed nearly 1 million Americans.

 

Securing supply chains should be one of the core elements of economic security. The leaders welcomed cooperation between private sectors in next-generation semiconductors and advanced packaging. To deter economic coercion by China including crucial minerals, they reconfirmed their bilateral cooperation as well as working with like-minded partners. The leaders reconfirmed shared goal of producing and supplying battery materials and batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems in a trilateral summit meeting including the President of Philippines next day.

 

Kishida and Biden also recognized that the climate crisis was the existential challenge. They agreed on launching a new high-level dialogue to implement their domestic measures including US Inflation Reduction Act and Japan’s Green Transformation Promotion Strategy. Supporting their domestic policies may aimed at reinforcing their political bases each other.

 

Two days after the summit meeting with Biden, Kishida visited North Carolina, where Toyota was building a factory for EV batteries and Honda had another for jet air plane. “I’m reconfirming how Japanese companies contribute to US economy taking this opportunity,” told Kishida to the reporters in NC. Kishida hoped his visit would deliver a message that Japan’s contribution would have a bipartisan merit, considering unpredictable result of coming US presidential election.

 

On the same day, US Steel shareholders approved buyout by Nippon Steel. Workers’ union of US Steel has been opposing to the purchase of traditionally major corporation by Japan. Possible candidate of GOP in the presidential election, Donald Trump, also expressed his opposition. Kishida may have to explain about some negative impacts of economic cooperation with US.

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