What "Abenomics" Means for the US

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe make his first visit to the White House, as he shops around "Abenomics", a plan to grow his economy by weakening, but which US sectors and companies are the greatest risk to that policy?

Published

3 months ago

Categories

Finance, World, US

Topics

Economic Policy, Asia, Finance, United States, US Politics

People

Barack Obama, Shinzo Abe, Ian Bremmer, Jeff Schott

Places

Japan, United States of America

Companies

Abbott Laboratories, International Business Machines Corporation, Merck Kommanditgesellschaft Auf Aktien, Texas Instruments

Transcript

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe makes his first official visit to the White House - adamant on preserving good relations with the U.S. He made this comments at a separate event in Washington. SOUNDBITE: JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER SHINZO ABE (ENGLISH) SAYING: "Soon Japan will export more but import more as well. The U.S. will be the first to benefit from that." Abe has to convince President Obama to buy in to his goal of sparking investment in the stagnant Japanese economy by weakening the yen. This policy has been dubbed "Abenomics." Jeff Schott of the Peterson Institute: SOUNDBITE: JEFF SCHOTT, SENIOR FELLOW, PETERSON INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS (ENGLISH) SAYING: "Well I think what Abenomics is trying to do is generate increase demand in the Japanese economy and that requires using both monetary policy dealing with basic regulatory policies that have inhibited investment and also opening up the trade and investment for more competition." While experts caution against making too big a deal over the impact of a weaker yen, there will be winners and losers. The two countries did over $200 billion worth of business with each other in 2012, with U.S. exports trailing Japanese imports at a rate of 2-to-1 The auto industry is first to come to mind, but consider this, by the end of 2012 over 750,000 Japanese-label automobiles were actually made in the U.S., as more Japanese automakers open shop in America. Looking deeper, though many U.S. companies don't break out Japanese sales numbers, S&P Dow Jones Indices says of those who do: IBM, Abbott Labs, Merck, Eli Lilly and Texas Instruments have the highest contribution of sales coming from Japan. Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group says that deepening Trans-Pacific partnerships, or TPP, agreements are imperative to the Obama administration and Japan will play a key role. SOUNDBITE: IAN BREMMER, PRESIDENT, EURASIA GROUP (ENGLISH) SAYING: "I do think that we can make progress. I know that TPP is important to Prime Minister Abe and to his administration. I know it is important to Obama. I do not believe that we are going to look at exceptions for Japan but there can be linkage. So for example, the Japanese really need energy, the United States is going to be producing all this gas in LNG (liquid natural gas). I can imagine a situation where there is a deal where the Japanese are in TPP and the U.S. allows the export of LNG to Japan." Negotiations between the two countries continue - with the White House looking to maintain tariffs on Japanese automobiles, while Japan looks to protect its rice sector.