The Japan Financial Services Agency released a Q&A summary of Finance Minister Katayama’s post-Cabinet press conference covering US trade measures, implementation of the Japan–US agreement reached last year, and the government’s current thinking on multi-year fiscal management. On US tariffs, Katayama said Japan will closely monitor the US Supreme Court ruling that found the Trump administration’s reciprocal tariffs unconstitutional, the US government’s response, and any implications for last year’s Japan–US agreement. He also noted that sectoral tariffs such as automobile tariffs remain in place and that the United States has communicated it will impose measures similar to the previous reciprocal tariffs, while Japan intends to steadily implement the agreement including strategic investment initiatives and the agreed USD 550 billion in investment and loans and will call on the United States to do the same. On fiscal policy, he referenced Prime Minister Takaichi’s plan to introduce a mechanism to manage outstanding debt as a percentage of GDP over multiple years by separately managing crisis-management and growth investments, and said the Cabinet has already decided to begin considering a new framework to secure resources for crisis-management investments in economic security areas including shipbuilding, quantum and critical minerals. Katayama said the new fiscal framework is still being worked through and he was not in a position to give specific projections at this stage.

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