alt Hacker NewsJapanese here. Caved is not an accurate expression. After intense negotiations with Trump, Lutnick, and Bessent, Minister Akazawa managed to reduced the tariff from the proposed 25% to 15%. His story of flying weekly to the States on commercial aircraft became legendary.
PM's resignation stemmed from unpopularity not due to tariff negotiation, but diminished ability to pass laws after the ruling party lost significant number of seats in elections for upper and lower houses.
As for other countries around the world, the world-wide inflation caused many ruling parties to lose support.
Replies
foogazi • today at 5:20 PM
lol - so they pled down from 25 to 15 ? What were the tariffs before ?
I said it in another comment, not only did they negotiate that, the resulting negotiation held very little of substance for the US. It was very light on specifics and all for show.
It has been said that when the tariffs started that the Japanese delegates went to Washington to negotiate. The delegates asked them "Since you are trying to negotiate, what do you want of Japan?"
All they got back was "Well, what can you offer?"
Turns out they had started the tariff war with absolute no idea on what demands they wanted to make. Japan used that to their advantage because without any specifics, they were free to write the terms.