SEOUL, South Korea — The Trump administration’s tariffs on Japanese and South Korean goods have ratcheted up the stakes for the two U.S. allies at next week’s summit of the Group of Seven leaders in Canada.

U.S. President Trump is widely expected to join his counterparts from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the European Union, alongside leaders from Australia, South Korea, India and Ukraine, in Kananaskis, Alberta, for three days beginning from June 15.

The gathering represents an opportunity for representatives of the world’s largest economies to negotiate face to face with Mr. Trump over the sweeping new tariffs on imports he announced April 2.

Whether the tariffs represent actual policy or are simply an aggressive negotiating stance on trade remains unclear. 

Heavy tariffs of up to 26% are due to be implemented against Japan and South Korea by July 8, but Mr. Trump has shown some deadline flexibility toward China and the EU.

Still, leaders in Seoul and Tokyo who oversee two of the world’s largest manufacturing economies — both with long histories of trade surpluses with the U.S., as well as security alliances with Washington — have been stunned by the Trump administration’s hardball style.

The tariffs have also drawn criticism in the U.S., not only from Mr. Trump’s diehard opponents, but from former allies and free traders.

Leaders old, new face tariff crisis

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Mr. Trump are familiar with one another. Taking a major political risk, Mr. Ishiba — leading a fragile government in the Diet — pushed for a bilateral meeting in February.

He was rewarded: A beaming Mr. Trump offered him an upbeat welcome at the White House. The two agreed on multiple issues, from energy to Indo-Pacific security.

Those good vibes played well in Japan — but preceded Mr. Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff announcement.

Tokyo has — at least publicly — demanded that the tariffs be nixed in a series of statements that are at odds with the customarily reticent Japanese tone toward its leading ally.

Widespread expectations in Japanese media are that Mr. Ishiba will summit with Mr. Trump on the G7 sidelines, but information on the progress — if any — in Tokyo-Washington negotiations has dried up.

That is generating taut nerves in high places.

On Sunday, the head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party, Yoshihiko Noda, asked Mr. Ishiba to brief other party leaders.

“We need cooperation because this is a national crisis,” he told reporters Sunday.

Sitting alongside Mr. Noda, Yuichiro Tamaki, who heads the center-right Democratic Party for the People, which holds the fourth-largest number of seats in the lower house, made an identical request.

“It’s impossible to tell from the outside if negotiations are proceeding or not,” Mr. Tamaki said, requesting ”minimum disclosure and sharing of information.”

Mr. Ishiba held an information-sharing meeting with the heads of six major parties in April, but has not followed up since.

In neighboring South Korea, newly elected Lee Jae-myung needs to make up for time lost.

Between Dec. 3, 2024, when then-President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, and June 3, when Mr. Lee won the presidential election following Mr. Yoon’s impeachment, Washington had nobody in Seoul with a strong mandate to negotiate with.

It does now. Mr. Lee, who was elected with a comfortable win on June 3, wasted no time in holding his first call with Mr. Trump on June 6.

In addition to feel-good messages on the bilateral alliance, the two agreed to work toward a mutually satisfactory tariff agreement “as soon as possible,” to encourage “tangible progress in working level negotiations” — and, per Korean media, to play a round of golf.

The U.S. Trade Representative and the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea have separately made clear that U.S. firms in Korea face nontariff barriers. AMCHAM Korea, which has met with Mr. Lee. deployed a delegation to Washington Monday.

“With South Korea’s new administration just taking office, this is a unique window of opportunity to help shape the next phase of bilateral economic cooperation,” said AMCHAM Chairman and CEO James Kim, who had met with Mr. Lee.

Also Monday, Mr. Lee held a phone call with Mr. Ishiba, during which the two agreed to continue trilateral cooperation with the United States.

The calls to Washington and Japan may reassure those who feared that Mr. Lee might prioritize relations with Beijing.

Mr. Lee has been invited to the Canada G7 and announced Saturday that he would attend.

It’s a big step. A mayor and a provincial governor before entering national politics, Mr. Lee lacks overseas experience.

Trump’s domestic hurdles

While Seoul and Tokyo ponder their moves ahead of the July deadline, considerable flak surrounds tariffs on the U.S. home front.

While the feud between Mr. Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk exploded in multiple directions, one of the latter’s central digs took aim at tariffs.

“The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year,” Mr. Musk wrote on his platform, X, last week.

Even right-leaning economists are frowning.

Wayne Winegarden, senior fellow of Business and Economics at the free market Pacific Research Institute, critiqued one of Mr. Trump’s central concerns: The trade surpluses East Asian industrialized democracies enjoy with the U.S.

“The notion that the trade surpluses/deficits are a problem is off base,” he said. “People living in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan want to invest in the U.S. economy: To do so, they need U.S. dollars, and the way to obtain U.S. dollars is to sell more goods to the U.S. than we sell to them.”

Seen through that prism, “investment helps drive innovation and keeps the cost of financing debt in this country lower than otherwise,” he added.

If fully applied, tariffs will damage U.S. consumers more than Asian exporters, he insisted.

Noting that Japan exported around $150 billion to the U.S. in 2024, a 24% tariff rate would increase product costs by $36 billion.

“That means Japanese manufacturers will sell slightly fewer products to the U.S.,” he warned. “However, the impact on the U.S. economy will be even larger as consumers will spend significantly more on fewer imports from Japan.”

• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.