Danforth-Led Delegation Urges Increase in Imports : Japan Cool to U.S. Trade Criticism
Japanese leaders responded politely but coolly Monday to demands by six U.S. senators that Japan take drastic measures to increase its imports of manufactured products to correct an estimated $50-billion annual trade surplus with the United States.
“Just because the trade imbalance has not been corrected does not mean that Japan is acting unfairly,” said Kiichi Miyazawa, a prominent member of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, during a meeting with Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.) and five other senators. “We (the Japanese people) do not like to be called unfair.”
Miyazawa, fluent in English, is chairman of his party’s policy council and is a strong contender to succeed Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.
His remarks came in response to warnings from the senators that Japan’s failure to import manufactured goods is making U.S. voters skeptical of the benefits of free trade. He noted that Japan’s exports continue to rise in spite of six market-opening packages by the Japanese government in the past 10 years.
In a speech to the Foreign Correspondents Club on Monday, Danforth complained that no nation other than Japan “contributes so little to the open trading system of the world in proportion to what it gains.”
Danforth, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s subcommittee on international trade, called on Japan to urgently restructure what he described as an economy that is dependent on exports for its growth.
He chided Japan for importing “only what it cannot produce itself--chiefly raw materials,” while limiting manufactured goods to 25% of its imports, compared to 64% for the United States.
The senator said Japan would have to double its imports of manufactured products in the next five years in order to cut its surplus with the United States to acceptable levels.
However, Danforth’s suggestions drew cool responses from his hosts.
When Danforth called on Bunsei Sato, Japan’s minister of post and telecommunications, to ask for increased purchases of U.S.-made equipment, the U.S. visitor was told that the Japanese market was now as open as any in the world.
“It is now up to American manufacturers to study the tastes of Japanese consumers and make products they will like,” a senior official at the ministry quoted Sato as saying.
Japanese leaders told Danforth that recent measures such as the raising of the value of the yen--designed to make Japanese exports less desirable abroad--as well as agreements between Japanese and U.S. negotiators aimed at easing the entry into Japan of imports in electronics, telecommunications, forest products and the medical and pharmaceutical fields will have a beneficial effect on the U.S.-Japan trade relationship.
Danforth said he will be satisfied when such measures produce results. “It’s one thing to lower tariffs, and it’s another to buy the goods,” Danforth told reporters Saturday after meeting with Nakasone.
Danforth’s trade mission includes Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Thomas Eagleton (D- Mo.), James Exon (D-Neb.), John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W. Va.) and Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.).
