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When Trump met Japan's new prime minister and first female premier, Sanae Takaichi, in Tokyo on Tuesday, an F-150 was parked prominently outside the Akasaka Palace venue. Sign up here. Big U.S. pickup trucks are a rare sight in the Japanese capital, where the streets are narrow and turns can be painfully tight. But the placement of the F-150, not even typically available for sale in Japan, sent a clear message about Tokyo's willingness to buy more cars from its ally, an issue that has been a sore point for Trump for decades. Last week Reuters reported that Takaichi's government was working on a package to buy F-150 trucks, an idea originally floated by Trump, as well as soybeans and gas. "Well, that's great. She has good taste," Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Saturday, when asked about the report. "That’s a hot truck." But the reluctance to buy American has little to do with trade barriers. Both in Tokyo and London, many drivers see Detroit cars as simply too big and too hungry for petrol. It was not clear how many F-150s Japan planned to buy. Japanese government sources have told Reuters the trucks would probably end up being used as snow plows, given their size. A third of the 3.7 million new cars sold in Japan last year were mini or "kei" cars, tiny vehicles that are not produced by American automakers. Foreign cars accounted for 6% of new car sales overall, with European brands among some of the top sellers, industry data showed. Ford pulled out of Japan almost a decade ago. A Toyota spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on Trump's remarks. (This story has been refiled to fix the link in paragraph 12) Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and David Dolan; Additional reporting by Maki Shiraki; Editing by Clarence Fernandez Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab David Dolan helps lead Reuters coverage of Japan, with a focus on business news. He joined Reuters in Tokyo in 2004 and later worked in South Africa and Turkey, where he was also deputy bureau chief.
