Japan’s aluminum sector urges Trump to pull back on tariffs

Bloomberg

Japan’s aluminum industry is calling on President Donald Trump to rethink his plan to levy a 10 percent tariff on all imports of the metal, saying the action would hurt the country’s sales and could spill over into other industries, triggering a rise in global protectionism.
“Our biggest concern is that individual producers in this country will lose business,” Yoshihisa Tabata, executive director of the Japan Aluminium Association, said. “What makes things worse is that this could push the world into protectionism, hurting the viability of broader industries that are based on international division of labour.”
Trump has vowed to stick to his plan to impose across-the-board tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports even as opposition grows from allies and adversaries alike, and he expects to sign a formal order this week or soon after. While there’ll be no country exclusions, there’ll be “an exemption procedure for particular cases where you need to have exemptions so that business can move forward,” Peter Navarro, director of the National Trade Council at the White House, said.
Japan buys primary aluminum from overseas and processes it into sheet and extrusions used in vehicles and heat exchangers for domestic sale and export.