Mizuho director Kobayashi says companies should not overreact to Trump’s tariff threats

By Shashwat Awasthi and Carolina Mandl

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Izumi Kobayashi, director at Japan’s Mizuho (NYSE:) 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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