WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump boasts what Japan has given him. A new trade framework, $550 billion to invest in the US. It’s a surprising person, but it’s still the subject of negotiations and perhaps not certain he portrays.
President Donald Trump will speak with reporters on Friday, July 25, 2025, before departing from the White House South Lawn to the Marines in Washington. The president is traveling to Scotland. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“Japan is raising $550 billion to lower tariffs a little,” Trump said Thursday. “They put up with seed money so you can call it. Let’s call it seed money.”
He said that even if Japan puts out the funds, 90% of the profits from the money invested will be sent to the US. “It’s not a loan or something, it’s a signature bonus,” the Republican president said of the trade framework that reduced threatened tariffs from 25% to 15%. Including cars.
White House officials said the terms were negotiated and nothing has been formalized in writing. Officials who advocated anonymity to detail the terms of the consultation suggested that $550 billion in funds would be invested in Trump’s instructions.
The total is important. It represents more than 10% of Japan’s gross domestic product. The Japanese Foreign Trade Organization estimates that direct investment in the US economy exceeded $780 billion in 2023. The extent to which $550 billion can represent a new investment or flow into an existing investment plan is unknown.
What the trade framework announced on Tuesday achieved is a big topic for the Trump administration.
The president claims he has brought trillions of dollars to new investments in the US, but their impact is Commitments are not yet shown in economic data Work, construction spending, or manufacturing output. This framework allowed Trump to say that other countries agreed to tax the goods, even if some of the costs of these taxes were ultimately handed over to US consumers.
The Japanese Cabinet Office said that it is $550 billion involving credit facilities of financial institutions affiliated with countries such as the Bank of Japan for international cooperation. More details will be determined based on the progress of the investment transaction.
Japanese tariff negotiator Ryosie Akazawa speaks to the media after a meeting between the Japanese Prime Minister and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent at the Tokyo Prime Minister’s Office on Friday, July 18, 2025.
Japanese trade negotiator, Momoyo, when he returned to Japan, did not discuss the terms of the $550 billion investment. Akazawa said he believes that a written joint statement is necessary, at least at the work level, to avoid differences. He does not think about legally binding trade agreements.
The US apparently released a version of the contract while Japanese officials were on their way back.
“If you find differences in understanding, you might need to point them out and say, ‘That’s not something we discussed,'” Akazawa said.
The US administration said the fund will be invested in key minerals, drugs, computer chips and shipbuilding. Japan also said it would buy 100 planes from Boeing and Rice from US farmers as part of its framework.
“And if the president is unhappy, they will return to a 25% tariff rate on both cars and other products. And at age 25, we can say that the Japanese economy is not going well, especially with cars.”
Akazawa denied that Bescent’s quarterly review was part of the negotiations.
“My last eight trips to the US have discussed with the President and the Minister during that time,” Akazawa said. “I don’t remember discussing how to ensure the implementation of the latest agreement between Japan and the US.”
He said if the scheduled rate on August 1 first rose to 25% and then fell to 15%, it would cause major disruption to the economy and management process. “We definitely want to avoid that. I think that’s an understanding that the US shares,” he said.
When buying the US, Japanese officials say there are no plans to procure the current 770,000 tonnes of “minimum access” caps to import more from the US. Agriculture Minister Ono Jiromi has decided whether Japan will increase US imports and said Japan has not committed to a fixed quota.
Trump’s Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick suggests that the Japanese deal is putting pressure on other countries such as South Korea to attack deals with US Trump, travelling to Scotland.
“Whatever Donald Trump wants to build, the Japanese will fund it for him,” Lutnick told CNBC on Thursday. “It’s pretty amazing.”
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Yamaguchi was reported from Tokyo.
