Why Japan is behind the obsession Trump has with tariffs for 4 decades

“He had a tremendous resentment towards Japan,” he tells BBC Barbara Res, an exejecutive of the Trump organization.

The then magnate observed, with many jealousy, how the Japanese were considered geniuses, he points out.

According to Res, Trump felt that the US was not receiving enough in exchange for attending his ally Japan.

Often, Trump complained that he found difficulties to do business with large groups of Japanese entrepreneurs.

“I am tired of seeing other countries take advantage of the US,” he said at that time.

This phrase, which could have been said in 2016 during its first presidential campaign, really said it in the 80s, during an interview with the journalist Larry King, of the CNN chain, in what many see how their first intentions in becoming In the president of the USA

Shortly after publishing his philosophy about business in his book “The art of negotiating” in 1987, Trump gave several interviews nationwide.

In a lively exchange with Oprah Winfrey in front of the audience of the famous The Oprah Show, he said that he would handle US foreign trade policy otherwise and would pay the country’s allies “the fair price.”

He added that there was no free trade when Japan was “flooding” with products the US market but at the same time made “impossible to do business” in the Asian country.

Jennifer Miller, history professor at Darmouth College, in the US, points out that others shared Trump’s concern at the time.

Japanese products were competence for American manufactures, particularly for electronic products and vehicles.

While factories were closed in the US and new Japanese brands entered the market, television experts indicated that Japan would soon exceed US as the main economy of the planet.

Before his interview with Oprah, Trump had spent about US $ 100,000 to publish an “open letter” in the three main US newspapers.

The head of that letter said: “There is nothing wrong with the US foreign defense policy that a little firmness cannot solve.”

In the letter, Trump claimed that Japan and other countries had been taking advantage of the US for decades. , they have built a huge economy with unprecedented excellent. “

For Trump, the most obvious solution was to put tariffs on the products of those rich nations.

“The world laughs at US politicians, while we protect ships that do not belong to us, transporting oil that we do not need, destined to allied countries that will not help us,” he wrote.

According to Miller, this announcement served as a powerful presentation of Trump’s vision on foreign policy.

A vision that started from the conception that the allies were parasites and the internationalist liberal approach that had dominated the world since World War II was weak and silly in a competitive world.

The solution, for him, was a protectionist and more aggressive policy in the international market.

“I think that is the reason why he likes tariff “The academic explains.

“And see tariffs as a threat that can be applied to another country,” he adds.

Clyde Prestowitz was the leader of US negotiations with Japan during the Ronald Reagan government.

Prestowitz, who has been a critic of free trade policies, said that no one who considers himself moderately intellectually speaking could join Trump’s ideas his simplistic approach to the subject.

Prestowitz is clear that Trump has not offered a real solution to the problem he has pointed out.

“The tariffs are something that can be shown, it is like ‘look what I did, I put tariffs on these types’ and that makes you see how the hard guy. Now, if those measures are effective or not discussable.”

Prestowitz believes that the real problem, then and now, is that the US does not have a strategy for its manufacturing policy, although it complains about an unfair trade.

Of course, fears in the rise of Japan calmed over time and now the Asian country is an ally.

Instead, the name of the “enemy” is now China, the most fierce competitor in the United States. This week, Trump welcomed Japan’s prime minister in the Oval office as one of the first foreign visits of his second term.

But Donald Trump’s government philosophy remains the same as when he was a young real estate entrepreneur.

Keep believing with the same force in tariffs as a tool to press other countries to open their markets and reduce commercial deficits.

“Simply say this all the time to anyone who listens to when someone asks, and that has been like that for 40 years. And to be fair to him, you know it is a very natural way to see international trade,” says Michael Strain, economist of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

The expert says that students often share Trump’s intuitive thinking about the economy, and one of the great challenges faced by teachers is to convince them that their understanding is wrong.

Strain says that despite Trump’s control over the Republican party, with a position that goes against decades of support for free trade, the president has not convinced legislators, business leaders and skeptical economists.

The conflict is its opinion that foreign imports are bad, that the size of the commercial deficit serves to measure the success of government policies or that the ideal state for the US economy is to import only goods that physically cannot be manufactured in the United States.

Strain believes that threats to increase tariffs on United States allies could reduce business investment and weaken international alliances.

Joseph Lavorgna, chief economist of the National Economic Council during Trump’s first mandate, believes that there has been an approach too closed in the subject of tariff to achieve.

He assures that the US president wants to boost the national industry, in particular the manufacture of high technology.

The administration, says Lavorgna, believes that it can encourage more corporations to come to the US. Using tariffs combined with deregulation, cheaper energy and lower corporate taxes. That, if Congress approves it.

“I think President Trump understands something that is very important, as a businessman who is and with a transactional vision, and that is that free trade is great in theory, but in the real world it is necessary to have a fair trade and that implies Equal conditions, “says Lavorgna.

The analyst bets that Donald Trump will be right. Few Republicans have publicly opposed the president, while he demands loyalty to his agenda.

Even so, some who have remained silent understand that their voters could be affected by the increase in prices and hope to convince Trump not to continue with his precious tariffs.

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