The 25 per cent tariff rates on Japan's steel and aluminium imports into the US are due to take effect on Wednesday, according to the executive orders signed by President Donald Trump last month.
"We agreed to continue close consultations with the US government and to hold discussions at the working level as soon as possible," Yoji Muto said in Washington DC after meetings with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and White house economic adviser Kevin Hassett.
In a bid to persuade President Donald Trump to exempt Japan from tariffs on cars and other products, Muto and other senior Japanese officials are touting Japan as a close economic partner that has invested heavily in the US economy and created millions of jobs.
In talks with his US counterparts, Muto said they also discussed Japan buying more US liquefied natural gas (LNG), a gas pipeline project in Alaska, and Nippon Steel's bid to buy US Steel.
Trump has imposed an additional 20 per cent tariff on Chinese goods entering the US as well as 25 per cent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, although he suspended most of the duties on US neighbours until April 2, when he plans to unveil a global regime of reciprocal tariffs on all trading partners.
The seesaw tariff announcements have unnerved Wall Street - the US benchmark S&P 500 index has given up all of its gains since Trump's November election.
It slumped again on Monday, hitting its lowest since September.
Hassett argues US tax cuts will boost the economy, increase investment and boost real wages by the second quarter, offsetting any negative fallout from the tariffs.
"Just be very wary ... of conversations about recession," he said.
"What I think that what's going to happen is the first quarter is going to squeak into the positive category, and then the second quarter is going to take off as everybody sees the reality of the tax cuts," he said.
Hassett rejected the notion that consumers would bear the brunt of tariffs proposed and implemented, noting that having US content would allow foreign producers to avert tariffs in many cases.
He noted that trade comprised only "a fraction" of the US economy, and even if there was a small change in the price of imported goods, real wages were expected to go up as manufacturing employment rose.
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