His trip last week was abruptly cancelled as there was still a significant gap between both sides on agricultural issues. To be more specific, Japan wasn’t pleased that the US wanted to include plans for Tokyo to increase purchases of American rice and a reduction of tariffs on agricultural products.
We’ll see if that has been sorted out. But again, all of this is just to tie a fancy ribbon around their framework agreement. This is mainly one put in place for both sides to negotiate a full-fledged trade deal eventually.
AloJapan.com