Take Firm Stand on Japan Trade, Governor Urged

Gov. George Deukmejian formally opened a new California trade and investment office here today after being advised by veteran U.S. Ambassador Mike Mansfield today to “lay it all out on the table” to the Japanese about America’s resentment of their huge trade surplus.

“They’ve gotten the message, but they’ve got to keep on getting the message,” Mansfield told Deukmejian just before the governor set off on a weeklong series of meetings with Japanese government officials, including Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone on Wednesday.

Deukmejian later followed Mansfield’s advice while meeting with Japanese Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, considered to be one of the leading candidates to replace Nakasone when the prime minister ultimately steps down.

The governor admonished Miyazawa, according to his own account of the conversation, that there are “strong voices from influential (U.S. Democratic) leaders who would like to instigate protectionist-type legislation. And if we’re going to successfully withstand those efforts, it is going to mean that Japan is going to have to address this trade deficit issue and to do it as quickly as possible.”

California’s Strategy

Deukmejian said that Miyazawa “recognizes the situation.”

The trade and investment office--replacing one shut down by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan 19 years ago--is part of Deukmejian’s $9-million program to pump up world-wide investment in California and open foreign markets to the state’s products.

The new Asian office, headquartered near the U.S. Embassy here, plus a similar office to be opened in London in April, are budgeted initially for $700,000 a year.

The brief ceremony opening the Tokyo office featured the normally staid governor donning a happy coat and breaking a sake barrel with a wooden mallet.

Deukmejian’s visit here comes at a politically sensitive time in U.S.-Japanese relations, when Tokyo newspapers run daily stories about strong protectionist sentiment in the United States, and Japan’s global trade surplus for last year has just been posted at a record $82.6 billion.

But Mansfield, in a 40-minute non-stop lecture to Deukmejian, followed by another 10 minutes of virtually uninterrupted “advice,” contended that trade protectionist legislation, as advocated by many Democrats in Congress, would be a terrible mistake because it would result in Japanese “retaliation.”

Also, he said, sitting across from Deukmejian at a conference table in the American Embassy, even if the Japanese did lower trade barriers and tariffs--”did everything that we wanted them to”--it would reduce the U.S.-Japan trade imbalance by only around $10 billion.

Deukmejian, at a later press conference, agreed with Mansfield’s assessment, but said even a $10-billion reduction in the trade deficit “would be very helpful, particularly to California.”

Mansfield, 83, who has been ambassador here for 10 years and was the U.S. Senate majority leader for 16 years before that, predicted that final figures will show a United States trade deficit with Japan of about $57 billion for 1986, up by $7 billion over 1985. “It’s intolerable,” he declared.

But Mansfield said the problem of the U.S. trade deficit is “global,” amounting to more than $170 billion for 1986. And he said the principal solution for the United States lies in increased cooperation between labor and management, and government and industry, together with more production, better quality products and more price competitiveness.

Deukmejian, still struggling with the 17-hour time difference between here and California--”I woke up at 4 o’clock this morning and had trouble getting back to sleep,” he told Mansfield--said little during the hour-long session.

Deukmejian, accompanied by a large contingent of advisers, reporters and California business leaders, arrived in Tokyo Saturday. On Sunday, the governor went sightseeing, visiting a 1,300-year-old Buddhist temple, a shopping center and attending a performance at the ancient Kabuki Theater.