The Japanese government should respond calmly to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff measures, former Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda said in a recent interview.

"It's better not to be worked up by every little thing, but to sit down and respond," Kuroda said, referring to frequent changes in U.S. tariff policy.

Kuroda criticized Trump's tariffs as "not even in the interest of the United States," arguing that they will accelerate inflation and dampen consumption.

The Trump administration has imposed additional tariffs on steel, aluminum and automotive products, as well as a base reciprocal tariff of 10%.

Meanwhile, it has suspended country-specific additional reciprocal tariffs in the face of financial market turmoil.

"What Trump will do is unpredictable, so U.S. companies are holding back on capital spending, which may lower U.S. growth in the medium to long term," Kuroda said.

"U.S. inflation could rise again to 4% to 5% in early autumn, boosting consumer frustration," he added.

In its latest global economic outlook report, released last month, the International Monetary Fund revised down Japan's economic growth projection for 2025 by 0.5 percentage point from its previous January forecast to 0.6%.

"Slower growth in the U.S., the largest export destination (for Japan), would have a negative impact on Japan," the former BOJ chief said.

However, he added that the U.S. tariff policy will not necessarily deal a heavy blow to Japan. A tit-for-tat tariff war between the U.S. and China could create demand for Japanese products as alternative goods, he noted.

Kuroda downplayed the possibility of a so-called second Plaza Accord, amid speculation in financial markets of such a deal to weaken the dollar to correct trade imbalances.

In the 1985 Plaza Accord, Japan, the U.S., Britain, France and then-West Germany jointly intervened in currency markets to guide the greenback lower.

After U.S. stocks, bonds and the dollar have been sold off at the same time due to investor distrust of the Trump administration's policies, Kuroda said, "There is no discussion of weakening the dollar at this point."

Kuroda noted that while such a discussion is possible in the future, it is unlikely that 20 eurozone economies would unite and join.

Kuroda acknowledged the BOJ's policy normalization efforts under his successor, Kazuo Ueda, as "appropriate."

"The norm that wages and prices won't rise (in Japan) has been broken, and we are close to seeing long-term inflation expectations settle around 2%," a condition for declaring a full exit from deflation, he said.

Ueda led the BOJ to end its negative interest rate policy in March 2024 and to raise its policy rate last July and this January.

But due to growing uncertainty caused by U.S. tariffs, Kuroda said that the BOJ "may not be able to continue rate hikes at the pace of once every half year."