Chance and challenge: Japan Inc worried but hopeful on Trump
TOKYO (AP) — President Donald Trump's salvos on trade and currency are rattling Japan Inc., but many here hope Prime Minister Shinzo Abe can sell him a "win-win" package of job creation and investment when they meet this week, averting a return of the Japan-bashing of the 1980s.
After taking office, Trump pulled the plug on U.S. involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, then a dozen, now 11-member trade pact the Obama administration promoted as a way to expand U.S. exports and influence in the Pacific Rim and counter China's growing economic sway.
Trump has criticized Toyota Motor Corp. for planning to build an assembly plant in Mexico, complained Japanese don't buy enough U.S.-made cars, and accused Japan of engineering its monetary policies to help Japanese exporters.
[...] following the lead of Softbank tycoon Masayoshi Son, who met with Trump in November and promised 50,000 jobs and $50 billion in new investments, officials say they are hammering out a job-creation package of infrastructure investments to propose during Abe's visit.
According to various versions of the proposal reported in Japanese newspapers, key areas of investment may include building high-speed trains, joint development of robotics, artificial intelligence and space technologies and ramping up imports of U.S. natural gas in Japan and elsewhere in Asia by building more liquefied natural gas facilities on this side of the Pacific.
Including auto parts, dealerships and factories, the Japanese auto industry provided more than 1.5 million jobs in 2015, figures from the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association show.
Finance Minister Taro Aso, who will visit Washington with Abe, insists the central bank's lavish monetary easing is aimed only at rekindling inflation, even though it has also coincided with a weakening of the yen against the dollar in the past five years.
Apart from his package of proposals for creating jobs and promoting cooperation and investment, Abe has said that in lieu of the region-wide TPP, Japan may strike a bilateral trade deal with the U.S.