Japan, US stick to trade deal after Supreme Court ruling

Washington and Japan agreed to stick to last year's trade deal even after the US Supreme Court blocked many of President Donald Trump's global tariffs, Tokyo said Tuesday.

Trump responded the court's ruling on Friday that he lacked the authority to impose the tariffs by announcing a new 15-percent global levy that was due to take effect later Tuesday.

Tokyo and Washington struck a trade deal last year that cut threatened US tariffs of 25 percent to 15 percent on Japanese imports in exchange for $550 billion worth of investments.

In a call on Monday, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's trade minister, welcomed the recent announcement of the first projects under that deal worth $36 billion.

"Minister Akazawa also requested that as the US government takes new tariff measures, Japan is not treated less favourably than in last year's agreement," Japan's trade ministry said in a statement.

"The two ministers then reaffirmed that Japan and the United States will continue to faithfully and promptly implement the agreement reached between Japan and the United States last year," the Japanese statement added.

There was no statement immediately visible on the US Commerce Department's website or X account after the 40-minute phone call.

On Monday European Union lawmakers put the bloc's trade deal with the United States on hold following the Supreme Court ruling, postponing a vote that had been due to take place Tuesday.

"Any Country that wants to 'play games' with the ridiculous supreme court decision, especially those that have 'Ripped Off' the U.S.A. for years, and even decades, will be met with a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to," Trump wrote on social media on Monday.