Reagan Won’t Blame Trade Deficit on Japan

President Reagan met with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in Century City today, ostensibly to urge that country to open its markets to U.S. goods. But the President refused in the presence of reporters to blame Japan for its huge trade surplus with the United States.

“Our trade deficit, of course, is worldwide due to some of our own economic problems,” Reagan told reporters as he posed for pictures with Nakasone at the plush Century Plaza Hotel, where the President began his six-day New Year’s holiday last week.

That view was in contrast to that expressed earlier by an Administration official who told reporters that Reagan would urge Nakasone to take urgent action to open its markets in an effort to cut America’s “staggering” trade deficit.

Reagan, asked whether Japan’s barriers to U.S. imports had contributed to the U.S. trade deficit, replied, “No, we have made great progress.”

He also said, “We don’t argue. We are good friends.”

The meeting occurred on the 30th floor of the New Century Plaza Tower. Afterward the men and their aides held a working luncheon.

Following the meeting, which also included Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane, Reagan was returning to Washington.

Before Reagan’s talk with Nakasone, a U.S. official had said the meeting was occurring “at a time of mounting frustration over our continued inability to gain full access to Japan’s market.”

As a result, the U.S. trade deficit with Japan was expected to reach about $34 billion in 1984 out of a total U.S. trade deficit “that has now reached truly staggering proportions of $114 billion,” the official said, speaking on condition that he not be identified.