Trade Minister Ömer Bolat mentioned Wednesday that he deliberate to precise Ankara’s expectations for the ten% tariff imposed by the United States to be eliminated throughout his go to to the nation subsequent month, citing surplus on the Washington aspect.
Bolat is at present in Japan, together with officers from the federal government and personal sector, to strengthen financial and commerce cooperation between the 2 nations.
The Turkish delegation arrived in Japan for the opening of the Osaka EXPO 2025, a significant business gathering going down between April 13 and Oct. 13, 2025, specializing in the promotion of recent applied sciences, alternate between nations and cultures, and addressing international challenges.
Speaking to journalists, Bolat evaluated Türkiye-Japan commerce ties and potential for cooperation, whereas additionally touching upon levies launched by the Trump administration.
He mentioned Türkiye-U.S. relations are robust when requested by reporters about calls for he would make and expectations for his U.S. go to. The minister additionally drew consideration to the truth that the U.S. is Türkiye’s second-largest commerce companion after the European Union, explaining that the commerce is balanced.
“It is natural for the U.S. to prioritize the countries with which it has a foreign trade deficit in the measures it takes. The U.S. has a surplus in relation to us. In that sense, we expect the 10% tariff to be removed. This will be our concrete demand,” Bolat mentioned.
“In the new period, our ‘Far Countries Strategy’ for the U.S. and the American continent is already being implemented intensively in the Trade Ministry for the two countries to reach the foreign trade volume target of $100 billion in the long term. The exporters’ associations, Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) and Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK), will endeavor to reach this foreign trade target with new actions together,” he famous.
Bolat, when reminded of the evaluations that the setting of uncertainty following the choices by the U.S. will depart everlasting harm to world commerce, emphasised that periodic volatility or turbulence means contraction of world commerce and contraction of world nationwide revenue.
“We hope that the countries that will realize this will come to the point of developing the multilateral world trade system and implementing its rules with common sense. Because when everyone closes in on themselves, when trade decreases, impoverishment will occur in the world and the world’s national income will shrink,” he elaborated.
“This is not a situation that benefits anyone,” he added.
“Although there are fluctuations from time to time, I believe that the countries that will realize the importance of growth and trade developing together in the world will once again make these multilateral rules superior based on the World Trade Organization (WTO).”
Recalling the monetary disaster in 2008 and the current COVID-19 pandemic, Bolat mentioned: “At that time, it was perceived as if the apocalypse occurred and the world would come to an end. The world economy recorded a double-digit contraction at that time, especially in Western countries, but after a while, the recovery process started again. I think we will overcome these.”
Japan ties, cooperation
Bolat additionally famous cooperation with Japan and mentioned Japanese businesspeople are keen to cooperate with Turkish contracting firms, particularly within the reconstruction strategy of Ukraine and a few necessary infrastructure and vitality tasks in Africa and Asia.
He mentioned Japan’s engineering functionality and monetary energy, mixed with the manufacturing functionality and high quality manufacturing of Turkish contracting firms, have resulted in lots of necessary tasks.
“There may be new successful collaborations like this in the reconstruction of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Ukraine and of course Syria, which are currently the favorite countries of the world contracting sector. Just a week and 10 days ago, consortium cooperation agreements were signed between Turkish contracting companies and Japanese companies for two major projects in Turkmenistan,” he mentioned.
Regarding the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations between Japan and Türkiye, he mentioned: “Negotiations on the Türkiye-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement are ongoing. This is a technical process. Delegations are in these negotiation rounds from time to time. They put forward their demands and expectations in terms of various sectors and products, but in the meantime, of course, there have been very turbulent processes.”
He recalled that negotiations needed to be paused, citing points such because the pandemic and the earthquake, however highlighted Ankara’s willingness on this matter continued.
“Of course, these are not processes like buying and selling products at a grocery store or a market, but important processes. The services sector, agriculture, industry and technological products, all of these are being evaluated. Twelve thousand five hundred products are being evaluated. Therefore, our stance on this issue remains unchanged. The technical delegations will come together again in the upcoming period,” the minister mentioned.
When requested in regards to the contacts made between Japan and Türkiye relating to service exports, Bolat defined that Türkiye had $61 billion in tourism and $40 billion of logistics revenue final 12 months, and that air transportation was an important a part of this.
Providing the data {that a} whole of $115 billion of service exports had been made, together with training, tourism, well being and software program revenue, he mentioned: “Our relations with Japan, which would increase in the services sector, could be in technology export revenues related to the developments in transportation, tourism, education, health tourism, software, and the artificial intelligence sector.”
“It will be in the contracting (industry) income. We see that the Japanese side is also willing to work with Turkish contracting companies on this issue,” he mentioned.
Source: www.dailysabah.com