Reagan to Press Nakasone on Trade Barriers

President Reagan on Wednesday will emphasize “very candidly” to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone the “urgent need” to lower Japan’s trade barriers to U.S. goods but will not push as hard as some advisers have advocated, an Administration official said Monday.

Reagan and Nakasone will meet for three hours in Los Angeles on Wednesday “at a time of mounting frustration over our continued inability to gain full access to Japan’s markets,” said the senior official, who spoke with reporters on condition that he not be identified.

The U.S. trade deficit with Japan during 1984 is expected to exceed $34 billion, the official said, out of a total U.S. trade imbalance that “has now reached truly staggering proportions of $114 billion.”

Closed Japanese Markets

The primary U.S. concern, however, is not with the trade deficit itself, he emphasized, but with “the closed nature of Japan’s markets” to American goods.

Despite such concern, Reagan--who has been vacationing here at the golf course estate of publisher Walter H. Annenberg--will not get as “tough” with the Japanese leader as some of his advisers have advocated, the official stressed.

Three weeks ago, for example, Under Secretary of Commerce Lionel H. Olmer told an audience in Tokyo that the United States was “running out of patience” with Japan’s reluctance to open its markets. Another Administration official, requesting anonymity, said the United States wanted a “long-term action program” from Japan to review and alter all trade policies that adversely affect bilateral trade.

“Some of the things that appear to be getting tough really are getting stupid,” the senior official at Palms Springs said. “You don’t go into a meeting with a friend like that, treating him as an enemy or as an adversary, setting up the kind of confrontation in which, frankly, you may satisfy some people’s emotional longings but you don’t make progress . . . .

“The President will be very candid, but there’s a difference between being candid about a problem and saying we’ve got to do something together to solve it, and being threatening, or being abusive, or being confrontational, or making threats that, in fact, amount to shooting yourself in the foot.”

According to other Administration officials, Reagan feels indebted to Nakasone for the Japanese leader’s strong support of U.S. foreign policy, particularly on arms issues. Nakasone, for example, provided crucial backing for Reagan’s successful push at the 1983 economic summit conference in Williamsburg, Va., for a statement endorsing deployment of U.S. intermediate-range missiles in Europe.

“Our problems in trade notwithstanding, it’s important to remember that this relationship with Japan is one that has brought enormous benefits to the United States’ position and to security in Asia and indeed the world,” the official said in a briefing Monday. “It’s fair to say that Japan is the linchpin of the U.S. political and strategic position in the Pacific region, a region of growing and already enormous importance.”

And the official acknowledged that “there’s no question that the overall value” of the U.S.-Japanese relationship “has some impact on the way you approach” all issues between the two nations, including trade.

One high-ranking Japanese official, who asked not to be identified, said “it would be unrealistic” for Reagan to urge Nakasone to set import targets for U.S. goods, as some Administration officials have suggested.

But the American official said, “we are concerned that while Japan enjoys great success in penetrating our very open markets, it continues policies that make it difficult for us to sell products that should be competitive in Japan. . . .

“There’s an urgent need for effective action, and that is the primary point the President intends to emphasize.”

According to officials on both sides, Nakasone requested the meeting, his fifth with Reagan. His primary purpose appears to have been political: It helps him in Japan to illustrate his good rapport with Reagan.

The 73-year-old President and the 66-year-old prime minister have much in common:

Both were reelected in November and now are lame ducks; both are skilled orators and charismatic politicians; both face huge budget deficits; both support substantial defense buildups but are under domestic political pressures for constraint, and both have cut back dramatically on government spending for domestic programs.

Both Japanese and U.S. sources here say relations never have been better between the two governments. And, according to a prepared statement issued by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Just a couple of months after the two leaders won reelection to second terms in office, they are unlikely to spoil the celebrations by falling out over specific issues.”

However, there are some tensions bubbling just below the surface, and not all of them involve trade.

“It is Japan’s feeling that there should be improved dialogue and progress” toward nuclear arms reduction with the Soviet Union, said the anonymous Japanese official. “It is high time the United States sits seriously and negotiates.”

Reagan will outline to Nakasone the position that the United States will take when Secretary of State George P. Shultz meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko next Monday and Tuesday.