TOKYO: Japan will present US President Donald Trump with a package of measures to win relief from US tariffs, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Monday before local media reported that the two leaders appeared to have held a 20-minute call.
Japanese firms are some of the biggest foreign investors into the United States but Trump announced a hefty 24 percent tariff last week on imports from the close US ally as part of global reciprocal levies.
Public broadcaster NHK and other Japanese media reported on Monday evening that it appeared Ishiba and Trump had spoken remotely, but there was no immediate confirmation from either leader.
"We believe that we have to present a package, and we cannot present it on a piecemeal basis," Ishiba said in parliament earlier on Monday.
He said that this could include Japan's involvement in a mooted natural gas pipeline project in Alaska.
Trump said in February after talks with Ishiba at the White House that Japan would be a partner in the gigantic project.
Japanese officials have been trying to arrange a phone call between Ishiba and Trump since the US president announced the tariffs last week.
Japan's main stocks index, the Nikkei 225, tumbled almost eight percent on Monday as panicked investors around the world moved into safer assets.
The Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) said on Monday that the world stands at the "crossroads" of whether free trade can be maintained.
"The world has flourished through the free trade system and free trade since the end of World War II. The driving force behind this system is the United States," chairman Masakazu Tokura told a news conference.
"The US itself has (now) raised tariffs, and protectionist moves have emerged in response because various countries needed to counteract these moves," Tokura said.
"To put it in a dramatic way, we hold a sense of urgency that we stand at the crossroads of whether the free trade regime can be maintained," he said.
Trump has also imposed 25 percent levies on cars coming into the United States parallel to the 24 percent tariff on Japanese imports that takes effect this week.
The auto sector in Japan is a major pillar of the world's fourth-biggest economy, employing about 5.6 million people directly or indirectly.
Vehicles accounted for around 28 percent of Japan's 21.3 trillion yen ($142 billion) of US-bound exports last year.
