March 14, 2026

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

The U.S. Supreme Court on February 20 ruled that the “reciprocal tariffs” imposed by President Trump on global goods last April under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) are unconstitutional.

Now that the legal basis for Trump’s tariffs has been undermined, the premise for a Japan-U.S. tariff agreement no longer exists. At the Japan-U.S. summit scheduled for March 19, Prime Minister Takaichi should stand firm and demand that President Trump withdraw his unilateral tariff demands.

Just before this ruling, the Japanese and U.S. governments on February 17 rushed to announce the first three projects (worth roughly 36.5 billion dollars or 5.6 trillion yen) of Japan’s 550-billion-dollar investment package (approximately 85 trillion yen) in the United States as agreed upon in the Japan-U.S. tariff negotiations. This arrangement is fundamentally unfair because the United States will receive 90% of the profits, while Japan bears the majority of the investment risk.

The projects in question are the construction of a gas-fired power plant in Ohio, the manufacturing of synthetic diamonds in Georgia, and the development of a crude oil export terminal in Texas. These are all battleground states in the runup to the midterm and presidential elections. They are being used as part of Trump’s election strategy.

Despite the premise of the Japan-U.S. tariff agreement having collapsed, the two governments intend to proceed with the first three projects as planned, with the construction of next-generation nuclear reactors being proposed as a candidate for the second round of Japan’s investment.

President Trump has utilized threats of tariff hikes as a key negotiating tool in bilateral talks with many nations to pursue his “America First” agenda.

Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party government is acting as a puppet of the U.S. administration and is failing to protect its own economic “national interests”.

Bilateral negotiations alone are not enough to prevent Trump’s self-serving tariff policy. Therefore, multilateral international cooperation is necessary to get these unreasonable tariffs withdrawn.