United States, Japan trade negotiations
United States, Japan trade negotiations
The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) today issued a release about on-going trade negotiations between the United States and Japan.
The USTR release states that the United States and Japan “have reached agreement on early achievements from negotiations” in the areas of market access for certain agriculture and industrial goods and digital trade.
Further negotiations are anticipated to address remaining tariff and non-tariff trade barriers.
According to the USTR, the negotiations provide for liberalizing market access between the United States and Japan. The countries have reached an agreement by which Japan would eliminate or lower tariffs for certain U.S. agricultural products. For other agricultural goods, Japan would provide preferential U.S.-specific quotas. Once the agreement is implemented, over 90% of U.S. food and agricultural products imported into Japan would either be duty-free or receive preferential tariff access. Read a USTR release on agricultural-related provisions.
The United States would provide tariff elimination or reduction on 42 tariff lines for agricultural imports from Japan, including products such as certain perennial plants and cut flowers, persimmons, green tea, chewing gum, and soy sauce. The United States would also reduce or eliminate tariffs on certain industrial goods from Japan such as certain machine tools, fasteners, steam turbines, bicycles, bicycle parts, and musical instruments.
The USTR release further states that the United States and Japan have reached a separate agreement on a high-standard and comprehensive set of provisions addressing priority areas of digital trade. These areas include:
- Prohibitions on imposing customs duties on digital products transmitted electronically such as videos, music, e-books, software, and games
- Non-discriminatory treatment of digital products, including coverage of tax measures
- Barrier-free cross-border data transfers in all sectors
- Prohibiting data localization requirements, including for financial service suppliers
- Prohibiting arbitrary access to computer source code and algorithms
- Providing firms flexibility to use innovative encryption technology in their products
For more information on this topic or to learn more about KPMG’s Trade & Customs Services, contact:
Doug Zuvich |
John L. McLoughlin |
Andy Siciliano |
Steve Brotherton |
Luis (Lou) Abad |
Irina Vaysfeld |
Amie Ahanchian |
Robert Waldrop |
Gisele Belotto |
Christopher Young |
Andy Doornaert |
George Zaharatos |
Jessica Libby |
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