From The Japan Times, December 16:
Japan’s $550 billion investment pledge might end up falling short of the headline number and might become something more akin to routine investment — rather than a blank check for U.S. President Donald Trump to use as he sees fit — as negotiations over implementation continue and Tokyo focuses on the fine print of the agreement.
“I don’t think that agreement’s ever going to be implemented the way it is. I don’t think it’s going to happen,” said Richard Katz, an economist specializing in Japan. “I think Japan is like, yessing the U.S. to death, like the real negotiation is going on now.”
In the trade deal reached by the two countries on July 22, Japan agreed to invest $550 billion in critical industries and technologies in the United States, in exchange for lower tariffs on Japanese automobiles and other products.
Under the terms of a memorandum of understanding signed in early September, projects will be recommended by an investment committee chaired by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, before being approved by the U.S. president. Japan will provide input on the feasibility of candidate projects through a consultation process before the projects are presented to the president’s desk.
All investments need to be made before Trump’s term in office ends, according to the document.
“I’d be very surprised if the full $550 billion ever becomes reality,” said Paul Nadeau, a professor at Temple University’s Japan campus and a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Geoeconomics....
....MUCH MORE
There have to be economic incentives for the Japanese to follow through and hit that number.
Ditto for all the Direct Foreign Investment coming into the U.S. It is a hugely ambitious idea, to get the nations of the world to invest in the U.S., big enough to equal a year of two of Federal budget deficits (read stimulus) but should the countries negotiating these deals not see them as beneficial they will stall until President Trump is gone and take their chances (or shade the odds) of the next President not being as focused on the attempt to grow the U.S. economy out of the debt, deficit and interest cost death spiral the economy is currently following.
Carrots as well as sticks and time is short.
