Reagan to Ease Japan Sanctions : Computer Chip Dumping Has Stopped, U.S. Says

President Reagan will lift an additional $84 million in sanctions against Japanese products based on a government report that Japan has stopped flooding world markets with low-cost computer chips, his spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said today.

Fitzwater said the action will likely come by week’s end. In June, Reagan lifted $51 million of the $300 million in sanctions imposed last April.

Fitzwater said that $165 million in retaliatory tariffs will still be in place because Tokyo has not given U.S. chip manufacturers sufficient access to Japanese markets.

Reagan imposed the tariffs on Japanese televisions, power tools and small computers after U.S. officials determined that Japan had violated a 1986 agreement on semiconductor trade.

The Commerce Department said Monday that Japan, which earlier had ceased “dumping” computer chips at bargain-basement prices in the United States, also has stopped the practice in other foreign markets.

But U.S. companies, who had lodged a major trade complaint because of the battering they received from imports of Japanese-made semiconductors, now claim they can’t get enough of the items--at any price.

Industry officials claim that Japan, in an effort to get the U.S. sanctions removed, sharply curtailed production of chips by its producers, particularly those destined to U.S. markets, to drive up prices. Japan has denied the allegation.