Will tariff battle bring great change to Japan like the Plaza Accord once did?

TOKYO — Those who are worried about the ramifications of the tariffs being imposed by the Trump White House might consider what happened during and after the last U.S.-Japan trade war of the 1980’s. Skyrocketing exports of cars, cameras and television sets (products that unlike their American counterparts, tended not to break down) had been creating havoc — or “confusion” as the Japanese Government liked to say — in global markets.

To counter this, the finance ministers of the United States, France, West Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States met at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on September 22, 1985, some 40 years ago, to depreciate the U.S dollar and other Western currencies in relation to the Japanese yen and make Japanese products more expensive overall. It triggered a chain of events that turned Tokyo into the richest, and most expensive, city in the world and in a few years, crippled the country’s economy.