Japan Asks Reagan to Lift Sanctions

The personal representative of Japan’s prime minister, taking his country’s case for relief from U.S. economic sanctions to President Reagan, said today that “it is Japan’s responsibility to discharge what is expected of it.”

Shintaro Abe met with Reagan for 20 minutes and gave him a personal letter from Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.

Speaking later with reporters, Abe said he had told Reagan, “We should discuss . . . the very broad-based relationship between Japan and the United States. I also mentioned the semiconductor sanctions issue and emphasized that this measure should be lifted as quickly as possible.”

But he added that “it is Japan’s responsibility to discharge what is expected of it, and I outlined the measures I have formulated. . . . Namely they are domestic demand expansion measures, Japan’s expanded contribution to the international community, expansion of imports, including manufactured imports. . . . “

His appeal seemed to have little effect.

Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said, “It seems unlikely to us that we would be able to make a change” in the sanctions before Nakasone is scheduled to visit Reagan at month’s end.

And Senate Republican leader Bob Dole said he doubts that the present sanctions would stop the momentum building in Congress for tough trade legislation.

“I doubt if it will have much impact,” Dole told reporters at the White House after GOP congressional leaders met with Reagan. “I happen to agree with the Administration but I don’t think it’s going to change any votes,” the senator said.

Of today’s Reagan-Abe meeting, Dole said: “I don’t see it having any big impact. It comes a little late. I think this has been brewing . . . for two or three years. I think coming now, when we’re on the eve of passing legislation in the House and may in . . . three months in the Senate, it comes a bit late.”