GM Switches, Asks Japan to Cut Car Exports

General Motors Corp. said today that it has changed its position and is calling on the Japanese to cut their car exports to the United States when the current voluntary restraints expire at the end of March.

GM had been the only one of the nation’s top auto makers to favor lifting the restraints on Japanese car imports, saying it favored an open market and “free and fair” trade.

“We haven’t got fair trade,” GM Chairman Roger B. Smith told Automotive News, an industry publication. “The Japanese haven’t done anything to open up their borders.”

Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. have pushed to keep the restraints in place, claiming that their absence would allow the Japanese to flood the U.S. market with cars and threaten the jobs of American auto workers.

The Japanese agreed to extend the quotas last March, but in the meantime, many Japanese car makers have announced plans to build U.S. assembly plants either alone or in joint ventures with American companies.

The current limit on Japanese exports is 2.3 million cars a year. Smith did not specify to what level General Motors wants that level reduced, the publication said.