Japanese Executives Called On by Trump Pledge U.S. Investment

Japanese corporate leaders seized on President Trump’s visit to Tokyo on Tuesday to announce a basket of initiatives aimed at currying favor with the U.S. administration and mitigating potential trade frictions.

Toyota Motor will begin importing vehicles it makes in the United States and opening its distribution network in Japan to U.S. automakers, according to a White House memo.

The move by the world’s biggest automaker is a direct response to Mr. Trump’s longstanding complaints that Japanese manufacturers sell millions of vehicles in the United States each year, while American cars are not sold widely in Japan, where consumers tend to prefer smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles made by domestic manufacturers. Vehicles imported from the United States typically make up less than 1 percent of total passenger cars sold in Japan.

Japan’s trade ministry also announced on Tuesday a list of other domestic companies interested in investing in projects as part of $550 billion Japanese officials had agreed to fund in the country’s tariff deal with the Trump administration. The projects ranged from ones related to artificial intelligence to a nuclear reactor-construction initiative that was expected to be worth up to $100 billion and involve the Japanese firms Mitsubishi Heavy and Toshiba.

At a meeting with business executives in Tokyo, Mr. Trump and his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, invited officials from many of the companies named in the trade ministry’s list to shake hands with the president and hold up signs with details of their projects.

One by one, about a dozen executives, including Masayoshi Son of SoftBank, Kei Uruma of Mitsubishi Electric and Toshiaki Tokunaga of Hitachi, stood with Mr. Trump, holding investment pledges and smiling for photos and light applause.

Mr. Trump then said Toyota would be investing $10 billion in building auto plants “throughout the United States.” Mr. Trump said another company, the name of which he declined to give, would be contributing “about $18 billion” in investments as well.

“You’re all great business people,” Mr. Trump said. “Our country will not let you down.”

A spokesman for Toyota declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s statement about the $10 billion investment he said the company planned. Toyota’s name was not included in the trade ministry’s list of companies considering new projects in the United States.

Japan’s government and companies are facing pressure to spend more in the United States because of the trade agreement’s $550 billion commitment.

In an interview with Japanese media published on Monday, Mr. Lutnick said the first project to be funded by Japan’s investment vehicle would very likely be identified as early as the end of this year.

Other foreign automakers already export vehicles from U.S. factories, including to their home markets. Germany’s BMW and Mercedes-Benz, for example, export sport-utility vehicles to Europe, China and elsewhere from plants in South Carolina and Alabama.

Japanese companies have already significantly boosted their investments in the United States since Mr. Trump took office. From April through September, Japan’s trade surplus with the United States declined by more than a fifth from the previous year, according to data from Japan’s finance ministry.

Last month, the Japanese conglomerate Hitachi said it would invest over $1 billion in expanding the production of critical electrical grid infrastructure in the United States. In June, Jera, Japan’s biggest power producer, said it would begin importing up to 5.5 million tons of U.S. liquefied natural gas annually starting around 2030.

Jera, along with the utility Tokyo Gas, has said it is considering procuring liquefied gas from Alaska LNG, a long-dormant natural gas pipeline and export facility that has been given a second wind thanks to backing from the Trump administration.

On Tuesday, Japan and the United States also signed a memorandum of cooperation to promote investment in the U.S. maritime industry, including shipbuilding.