Mixed-Up Timetables

There was a lot of blunt talk in Washington about the U.S.-Japan trade problem last week, but when the talking was over the problem remained. Though Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone now acknowledges that Japan’s huge trade surplus with the United States has become “politically unsustainable,” he and his government are no closer than before to reversing this dangerous condition. Nakasone has his own timetable, a remarkably leisurely one in the circumstances, for actions that he suggests will ease trade frictions. But Congress, which has a timetable of its own, has long since signaled that its patience with promises has run out, and that from now on only performance will count.

Nakasone has announced a plan for trying to turn Japan’s export-driven economy toward a more domestic orientation. The mechanism would be a $35.7-billion market stimulation program aimed at increasing national consumption, including--or so it is hoped--the boosting of demand for foreign goods. Short of removing all the barriers to trade that help insulate Japanese producers from import competition, this is probably the best that can be had. But the Nakasone plan has two major flaws: It is painfully lacking in specifics, fostering doubts about how effective it might in fact be, and it is at best months away even from consideration by parliament.

The House, meanwhile, has already passed a trade bill, including a harsh provision that would force arbitrary cuts in Japan’s nearly $60-billion trade surplus with the United States if negotiations fail to do so. The Senate wants to complete work on its trade bill by September. Nakasone, though, has indicated that his economic expansion plan won’t be taken up before August at the earliest, and then only after he has tried--at perhaps enormous political cost--to win approval over bitter opposition for a controversial tax-reform plan.

This timetable may fit Japan’s political realities, as well as Nakasone’s own hopes for achieving fundamental changes before his term expires on Oct. 30. But by ignoring American political realities--notably the mood in Congress for doing something, almost anything, to slash this country’s trade deficit--it does nothing to slow the coming confrontation.