Mr. Mikamo is a director at the Marubeni Research Institute in Tokyo.  Today's quote is from a Bloomberg story we found today on Agweb.com.  The headline is "Japan Adds Pork Tariff Cut to Beef in Trade Pact with Australia." 

The story opens with some key facts: Japan is the world's largest buyer of pork and at present the U.S. is the top supplier, capturing about 38 percent of Japan's purchases of imported pork in 2013.  We are not sure whether that percentage is by volume - that would be 280.6 tons out of the 738.5 imported - or by value.  That would have been $1.4 billion out of $3.8.  For our purposes, it really doesn't matter.  If the Japan-Australia deal is implemented and there is no TPP, Australian producers will see beneficial changes in the relevant tariff-rate quota that their U.S. competitors will not enjoy, namely a drop in the tariff and an expansion of the quota.

It is  already tomorrow, April 24, in Tokyo, though it is still very early  there (4 p.m. in Washington is still just 5 a.m. in Tokyo.)  Anything could happen.  We confess we are not sure just what is being negotiated - how much is TPP per se and how much is a related U.S.-Japan side agreement.  All of that will be clear enough later.  For now, we will stick to a couple of obvious points and equally obvious observations.

Point one: Japan clearly had TPP in mind when it decided earlier this month to close the deal with Australia.  And since then, Japanese spokesmen, both official and non-official, have been using the potential downsides for the U.S. of the Australian agreement as leverage in the TPP talks.

All of this is a clear and stern reminder that, in a commercial context, it is the differential, the delta, that matters.  It is not hard to imagine the exporter who, given a choice between a) no tariff for anyone or b) a tariff that is lower than the one his competitors face, will go for "b" every time.  Who wants a level playing field when you can have an advantage?

All of this is fine if it works, if TPP gets done and the playing field of the Japanese market, if not level, is at least no more un-level than it was before all of these deals.  But what if the bilateral goes through and TPP doesn't?  Might not that add new bitterness to already difficult relationships?  It might indeed.

I'll switch to the first person here and confess that I went for a walk not long after reading the story with today's featured quote.  Surely, I thought, as I walked down Miller Hill, this will affect more than TPP.  It is bound to re-energize Canada's FTA negotiations with Japan.  When I got back to my desk I found another Bloomberg story, this one with the headline, "Japan may offer Canada Head Start on Pork Tariffs." 

There will be results from this week's TPP negotiations in Tokyo.  The question is: Will they be positive for American producers?