Japan’s Toyota motors stated that it did not explicitly promise a new $10 billion investment in the United States, a day after Trump mentioned a potential deal of that size.
Trump had said during his visit to Japan on Tuesday that the world’s largest automaker would be looking to invest around $10 billion in the United States. However, Toyota executive Hiroyuki Ueda told reporters that in talks with the Japanese government and the U.S. Embassy ahead of Trump’s visit, that no such explicit promise was made about an investment of that size. He also mentioned the company would continue to invest and create jobs in America.
“During the first Trump administration, I think the figure was roughly around $10 billion, so while we didn’t say the same scale, we did explain that we’ll keep investing and providing employment as before. So, probably because of that context, the figure of about $10 billion came up,” Ueda said on the sidelines of the Japan Mobility Show in Tokyo.
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“Therefore, we didn’t specifically say that we’ll invest $10 billion over the next few years,” Ueda also said the topic of investment did not come up when Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda briefly spoke to Trump at a U.S. Embassy event on Tuesday evening.
Trump met Japan’s new prime minister Sanae Takaichi on Tuesday. During his visit, the president and his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, unveiled investment pledges that they said they had secured from Japanese firms. The companies include sectors ranging from artificial intelligence to nuclear reactors.
At a meeting of business leaders in Tokyo, executives from many of the companies, including Kei Uruma of Mitsubishi Electric and Toshiaki Tokunaga of Hitachi, walked to the front of the room, shook hands with the president and held up documents detailing their projects.
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“This evening we are going to be signing $490 billion [worth] of investment,” Lutnick said. He told the president these deals were “created by your tariff policy” as well as a trade agreement the administration reached with Japan in which it agreed to invest $550 billion in the U.S. economy.
The White House also issued a memo on Tuesday stating that Toyota would begin importing vehicles it made in the United States to Japan. This would help address Trump’s complaint that Japanese manufacturers sell millions of vehicles in the United States each year while American cars in Japan are rare.
Toyota’s chairman, Akio Toyoda, expressed gratitude to the president for cultivating a “business-friendly environment” in the United States, according to a Toyota spokesperson, on Tuesday. Trump responded that they should “continue to do it together,” the spokesman said.