Nakasone Gets Warning From Deukmejian

Gov. George Deukmejian warned Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone on Wednesday about the “impatient” nature of Americans and said they are heading rapidly toward trade protectionism.

But the governor won only an assurance from the prime minister that Japan will try to solve economic frictions with the United States “one by one.”

Nakasone told Deukmejian that trade troubles with his nation’s No. 1 export market constitute a big “headache” for him.

The 20-minute meeting at the prime minister’s private residence, in what is called “the smoking room,” began with Deukmejian handing Nakasone a personal letter from President Reagan.

Recounting the meeting later to reporters, Deukmejian declined to describe the letter, saying only that it “related to trade.”

But a Japanese Foreign Ministry official who attended the session said the President’s letter amounted to a brief message introducing the governor as a close friend. It also conveyed Reagan’s hope that a new California trade and investment office here will stimulate more Japanese economic activity in his home state.

Deukmejian said he cautioned Nakasone that “it is becoming exceedingly more difficult” for American free-traders such as Reagan and himself “to hold off” the protectionists. The U.S. trade deficit with Japan for 1986 is being estimated at “$57 billion, another record.”

With U.S. Ambassador Mike Mansfield also in attendance, Nakasone expressed the hope that members of Congress and others advocating trade protection measures “will be patient and understanding” as Japan attempts to smooth tensions, Deukmejian said.

“I indicated to him,” the governor continued, “that, as he probably knows, Americans are sometimes rather impatient. And it is going to be very difficult unless we find there is a move toward making more access available for products from the United States.”

As the Japanese Foreign Ministry described it, Deukmejian delivered his now-familiar warning about approaching protectionism--a theme the governor has struck throughout his Japan trip--with considerably less force than he has in public speeches and comments.

Nakasone responded, the official reported, by saying: “I intend to deal with them (trade problems) one by one, seeking a better balance through an overall expansion (of both exports and imports).”

Nakasone said his government has begun to fulfill a promise he made to Reagan last April, during a visit to Washington, to reform the structure of the Japanese economy to make it less dependent on exports and government protection of non-competitive industries.

The prime minister cited, for instance, a government decision in November to slash domestic coal production by 50% in the next five years. Nakasone pointed out this would throw 22,000 Japanese miners out of work.

“Four of our coal mining centers will become ghost towns,” he told Deukmejian.

Deukmejian pushed, among other things, for lower tariffs on California wines. And he gave the prime minister several bottles as a present.

“I like California wine,” Nakasone replied, according to the Japanese official. “In fact, I drink it occasionally. It should have a better chance to enter the Japanese market.”

Later, Deukmejian also met with Foreign Minister Tadashi Kuranari in what was described by the Japanese as a “short courtesy call” of 15 minutes. Kuranari told the governor he was “concerned about the increasing tendency toward protectionism in the United States.”

This morning Deukmejian left Tokyo, where he arrived last Saturday, and rode a “bullet train” to the industrial port city of Osaka.

In a speech to a luncheon of Osaka business leaders, the governor complained that California firms “have been denied full and fair access to the bidding process” on an “$8-billion international airport project to be built on an artificial island in the bay.

“Japan has an opportunity to demonstrate its good faith,” Deukmejian said. “Failure to open this project to bid proposals by California firms would be a profound disappointment in our state.”

On Wednesday, the airport developers awarded the first U.S. contract for the project. The $200,000 pact--actually a subcontract--went to San Francisco-based Bechtel Civil Inc. A Bechtel spokesman said the contract involves studying other international airports to help develop a design for the new Japanese airport’s passenger terminal.

“It’s a small contract, but an important first step,” declared U.S. Assistant Commerce Secretary H. P. Goldfield at the signing ceremony.