Japan’s newly elected Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, told U.S. President Donald Trump at their meeting in Tokyo earlier this week that Japan would find it difficult to ban LNG imports from Russia, Japanese government officials told Reuters on Wednesday.
President Trump visited Japan earlier this week and held bilateral talks with Takaichi and other top Japanese officials. The two leaders praised a new “golden age of the ever-growing U.S.-Japan Alliance” and signed a framework agreement to support the mining and processing of critical minerals and rare earths, as they seek to counter the dominance of China in the sector.
However, before the summit, the U.S. began to request Japan to reduce and eventually cut off imports of Russian energy.
The issue with Japan’s LNG imports from Russia came up during this week’s meeting between President Trump and Takaichi, with Japan’s PM seeking understanding from the U.S. Administration about the Japanese energy security, according to Reuters’ sources.
Japan imports Russian LNG from the Sakhalin-2 project, in which Japanese firms Mitsui and Mitsubishi hold minority stakes, which they kept even after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, due to the importance of LNG supply for Japan.
Russian LNG accounts for about 9% of Japan’s total liquefied natural gas imports.
On the eve of President Trump’s visit to Japan, the U.S. reiterated calls on its allies, including Japan, to stop importing energy products from Russia.
Japan responded that it would base any decisions about energy imports on its national interests, following the suggestions from the Trump Administration that Japan suspend all purchases of Russian oil and gas.
The Trump administration has embarked on a pressure campaign against all large importers of Russian hydrocarbons on the grounds that depriving Russia of energy export revenues would deprive it of the financial means to continue fighting the Ukrainian forces.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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