Ishiba counters Trump's view on rice imports ahead of election
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday pushed back against U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that Japan is not importing U.S. rice, saying the misconception should be corrected.
Ishiba's comment, made during a meeting with farmers on the second day of campaigning for a nationwide parliamentary election, followed his remark the previous day that Trump may be misinformed about Japan's imports of rice and cars from the United States.
Ishiba, who leads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has traditionally enjoyed support from agricultural groups, reiterated that his government will not compromise national interests to reach a tariff deal with the United States.
"We have been importing rice from California," Ishiba said at the meeting in Fukushima Prefecture, one of the areas known for rice-growing in northeastern Japan.
"We must make sure that this point is clearly understood" by the U.S. side, he said.
Japan-U.S. ministerial talks aimed at finding common ground on tariffs appear to have hit a snag, with Trump in recent days voicing complaints about his country's trade with Japan.
Japan "won't take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage," Trump said in a recent social media post.
Trump has also threatened to raise duties on imports from Japan and other countries ahead of the expiration next Wednesday of a reprieve from so-called reciprocal tariffs.
Ishiba failed to reach an agreement with Trump during their mid-June summit, but he has maintained that Japan is in no hurry.
Still, Ishiba said Thursday that the bilateral talks have been "making progress steadily and certainly," though he declined to say how close the longtime allies are to a potential deal.
Soaring rice prices, driven largely by a poor harvest, have emerged as a key issue for major political parties ahead of the July 20 House of Councillors election, with opposition leaders criticizing the government's response as ineffective.
After roughly doubling from a year earlier, rice prices have begun to decline in recent days. Government data released Friday showed the average retail price of rice was 3,691 yen ($26) per 5 kilograms in the week ended Sunday, down 57 yen from the previous week.
The decline is partly due to the government selling rice from its emergency reserves to retailers in an effort to bring down prices.
In the run-up to the high-stakes election that could determine Ishiba's political future, he has pledged to boost domestic rice production, marking a departure from Japan's long-standing policy of controlling overall output.
"As an independent nation, we cannot allow rice cultivation to decline because of increased imports," Ishiba said in the Fukushima meeting.
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