The United States has agreed to amend a July 31 presidential executive order that inadvertently allowed a new 15% levy to be stacked on top of higher, existing tariffs on Japanese goods, Japan’s chief trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa said after two days of talks in Washington. U.S. officials also pledged to reimburse duties already collected under the oversight. Akazawa met Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, securing confirmation that the order will be re-written to include the same no-stacking clause granted to the European Union. The Trump administration further reiterated that tariffs on Japanese autos will be cut to 15%, down from the current 27.5%, and that the corrections will be implemented “within a reasonable timeframe,” rather than the 6–12 months Japanese officials had feared. Tokyo had pressed for clarity since the bilateral framework deal reached in July, which paired the 15% tariff cap with a Japanese pledge to channel as much as $550 billion into U.S. projects through loans and guarantees. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, under domestic pressure after an upper-house election setback, said the U.S. assurances remove a major point of friction. Reports of the amendment helped lift Japan’s Topix index above 3,000 for the first time, with analysts citing eased tariff concerns.