Updated on April 28, 2025, 11:15 a.m.
Bangkok-Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba discussed the advantages of free trade, facing a pricing war in China-United States that threatens the world economy, during a meeting with the best leader in Vietnam against Lam in Hanoi.
The Trump administration’s decision to tax Chinese imports 145% and the 125% of China reprisals on American products created what Ishiba called “a complex and multifaceted crisis”, in an article for Vietnam Tuio be newspaper.
Cooperation between Japan and Vietnam would contribute to regional stability and prosperity, he wrote in the element published on Sunday on his arrival in the Vietnamese capital for interviews with government leaders.
Ishiba and Lam discussed “the impact of American prices and reprisal actions in China on the world economy” at a meeting on Sunday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan said.
Ishiba stressed the importance of “maintaining an international and open international order” as well as international free trade.
But the two countries face higher American prices – 46% for Vietnam and 24% for Japan – unless they can persuade Washington, they will reduce their respective trade surpluses. Pressure to reduce American exports protects both countries to find markets other than America for their property.
Japan and Vietnam signed a free trade agreement in 2008. Japan was the fourth exporter of Vietnam last year, shipping $ 21.6 billion in goods. Vietnam has sent $ 24.6 billion in Japan products, also its fourth largest export destination.
Vietnam has also proven an attractive manufacturing base for Japanese companies, some of which have changed operations in China when the country was affected by heavy American prices in 2018 during the first Trump administration.
About 2,000 Japanese companies have set up operations in Vietnam and Ishiba met leaders of some of these companies, notably Canon, Denso Manufacturing and Mhi Aerospace while he visited an industrial park in Hanoi on Sunday, listening to their concerns about the impact of higher prices.
Regional security will also be on the agenda of Ishiba while he meets Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Monday.
The two will discuss a unified response to the increasingly assertive territorial affirmations of China in the eastern and southern seas of China. China and Japan clashed on China’s claims in the Senkaku, or Diaoyu Islands. Vietnam and China also faced the disputed territory in the Paracel, or Xisha, and Spratly, or Nansha, of the islands.
Japan wants to “further strengthen security cooperation”, faced with the “unilateral unilateral attempts of China to change the status quo by force,” said Ishiba, Kyodo News, while he was riding the flight to Hanoi.
Ishiba goes to Manila on Tuesday, where he should cover a similar program of trade and regional security when he meets Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
But regional defense agreements can do little to control the territorial ambitions of China and can increase tensions with a powerful neighbor, according to Koichi Nakano, professor of Japanese policy at Sophia University in Tokyo.
“The whole security architecture in the region has been designed with the United States as a center (and the other countries as shelves), it would therefore be naive to think that words will be equal by real acts on each side,” he told Radio Free Asia.
“It will certainly not help with the Japanese defense of Senkaku and could simply irritate China with regard to problems in Southeast Asia.”
Edited by Tajun Kang and Stephen Wright.
Updated with the comments of politician Koichi Nakano.