The U.S. says Japan has a 700% tariff on American rice. Is that the case?

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/03/12/japan/japan-rice-tariffs/

By Yukana Inoue
Staff writer 

Mar 12, 2025

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds up a piece of paper with information about tariff rates at the White House on Tuesday. | AFP-JIJI 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt created a stir in Japan on Wednesday when she accused Japan of imposing a 700% tariff on American rice as an example of what the U.S. government views as “egregious” duties levied by their trade partners.

“Look at Japan, tariffing rice 700%,” she said on Tuesday. “President (Donald) Trump believes in reciprocity, and it is about dang time that we have a president who actually looks out for the interest of American business and workers.”

Leavitt made the remarks as she explained Washington’s decision to impose an extra 25% to tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada, using a graph that also showed the Japanese tariff.

Her accusation is true only to an extent — it describes only a small portion of rice that Japan imports, and the tariff on the American grain is lower now, based on the current prices.

Japan has historically been reluctant to import rice — its staple food — to protect domestic rice farmers. But in the 1990s, its protectionism stance became a great source of trade friction during World Trade Organization negotiations.

As a result, Japan now imports 770,000 metric tons of rice without tariffs each year under a 1995 “minimum access” deal with the WTO.

According to the most recent numbers from the agriculture ministry, the U.S accounted for the highest share of tariff-free rice imported by Japan in 2023 under this agreement among countries that included Thailand, China and Australia, with a total of 350,000 tons of U.S. rice imported that year under the framework.

The U.S. has been the biggest exporter of rice to Japan under this tariff-free framework in most years at typically between 300,000 tons and 400,000 tons annually. Japan uses this rice for human consumption and as animal feed, as well as for international aid.

But for rice imports outside of this WTO framework, Japan imposes a tariff of ¥341 ($2.30) per kilogram.

The government does not disclose the tariff in percentage terms, but one calculation the farm ministry offered in WTO negotiations in 2005, based on international prices for rice between 1999 and 2001, showed that its tariff amounted to around 778%.

However, more recent data puts it closer to around 400% given the change in rice prices, according to Nikkei.

Japan annually imports about 100 to 200 tons of rice outside of the minimum-access framework, which is equivalent to about 0.03% of the tariff-free amount imported in 2017.

On Wednesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi explained to reporters about the minimum-access framework to put Leavitt's remarks into context.

“We refrain from commenting on every single statement made by U.S. government officials, but we would like to communicate with the U.S. side in any case,” Hayashi said.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/03/12/japan/japan-rice-tariffs/