The United States, Canada and Vietnam plan to remove import tariffs on Japanese automobiles over a period of 10 to 20 years under current Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, it has been learned.
The United States, the largest importer of Japanese cars, would take around 20 years to remove tariffs, meaning that for Japanese manufacturers of finished vehicles, benefits from the Pacific Rim free trade agreement would be limited for the time being.
The eight other countries participating in negotiations (Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, and Singapore) have already removed or plan to remove tariffs on Japanese vehicles. For Japan, a focus of negotiations had been how long the U.S., Canada and Vietnam would take to remove the tariffs.
