Reuters Next: Mizuho director Kobayashi says companies should not overreact to Trump's tariff threats

OMRON

10/12/2024 19:08

(Adds further comments about China, context)
    By Shashwat Awasthi and Carolina Mandl
       NEW YORK, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Izumi Kobayashi, director
at Japan's Mizuho Financial, Omron, and ANA, said on Tuesday
that companies should not overreact to President-elect Donald
Trump's threats of imposing tariffs on Chinese goods.
    At an interview at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York,
she said that it would be difficult to withdraw from China given
its mammoth size.
    Kobayashi said that industrial conglomerate Omron has not
yet taken any action to prepare for potential sanctions the
incoming Trump administration may impose, but there are some
ongoing discussions about it.
        One potential measure could be to separate the Chinese
unit from the rest, but that would bring some challenges in
terms of managing that business.
  
        Japan has been paying close attention to potential
sanctions on China. Last year, Japan's financial regulator
sounded out top domestic banks about China risks and whether
they had contingency plans in place if Sino-Western tensions
escalated, as they are heavily exposed to the country.
    A major risk for Japanese banks would involve U.S. sanctions
on China, hobbling their ability to do business there similar to
the bans on Russia dealings after the invasion of Ukraine.

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 (Reporting by Carolina Mandl, in New York, Editing by Franklin
Paul and Nick Zieminski)
 ((carolina.mandl@thomsonreuters.com; +1 (917) 891-4931;))