Asian Nations Try to Duck U.S. Unfair-Trade Hit List

Asia’s economically robust nations are trying everything from veiled threats to outright capitulation to avoid being branded unfair traders by the United States

Japan has cautioned that unilateral U.S. action could destroy multilateral efforts to promote freer trade.

South Korea has warned that America could undermine the country’s democratic and economic reforms if it cites Seoul as an unfair trader.

And Taiwan has gone so far as to promise what only arch U.S. protectionists were demanding last year--a programmed cut in its trade surplus with America of at least 10% per year.

Trade experts doubt whether any of that will be enough to keep the three nations off the U.S. hit list at the end of next month.

Given their large trade surpluses with the United States--together the three account for almost half of America’s deficit--the Bush Administration has little choice but to brand them unfair traders, the experts said.

That will set in motion a year of negotiations aimed at avoiding unilateral U.S. trade sanctions in mid-1990.

“It is almost inevitable that we will be listed,” said one Japanese official, who declined to be identified.

That hasn’t stopped all three nations from trying not to be.

Japan is about to embark on a major lobbying effort to convince the United States that Tokyo should not be on the list. Its foreign minister has requested urgent talks with his U.S. counterpart and its trade and agriculture ministers are going to Washington next week.

Japanese officials readily admit they don’t have any immediate solution to the yawning bilateral trade gap.

“We are concerned about the trade figure,” Mitoji Yabunaka, a director at the Foreign Ministry, told foreign reporters. “We don’t have a quick fix.”

In fact, Tokyo seems to be going out of its way to avoid its past practice of making trade concessions to the United States at the first sign of trouble in Washington.

Worried by a drift in the United States away from the free trade system, Japan does not want to send the wrong signal by giving in now to American pressure, one official said.

That would only reinforce the growing view in Washington that the best way to wring concessions out of Japan is through tough action and the establishment of bilateral targets for reducing the surplus, so-called managed trade.

“If the United States opts for managed trade, that will certainly kill any successful opportunity in the multilateral attempt (to foster free trade),” Yabunaka said.

Tokyo is hoping President Bush will eventually get the message that it is in his and the world’s best interests to stand up to protectionist pressures in the U.S. Congress.

And just in case he doesn’t, some Japanese officials are privately warning Bush could find himself isolated at the July summit of leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies.

In contrast to Japan, both South Korea and Taiwan seem to be following a more traditional approach of trying to appease the United States.

Seoul said this month it planned to liberalize imports of 243 agricultural and fishery products over the next three years to ease trade tensions with Washington.

“This package is the biggest concession we could make,” said an agriculture ministry spokesman. “We hope it will help Washington to understand our efforts to reduce bilateral trade tensions.”

A trade mission to the United States, including Korean Airlines, and business conglomerates Hyundai, Lucky-Goldstar and Samsung, signed contracts earlier this month to buy $2.6 billion worth of American products.

Taiwan’s Cabinet agreed last week to reduce tariffs on 378 foreign products to help slash the island’s trade surplus with the United States and other trading partners.

That followed intensive lobbying in Washington last month by top Taiwanese trade officials on behalf of a 4-year plan to cut the bilateral trade gap by at least 10% a year.

“We have done what we have to and hope the United States will not include us as a target for retaliation,” Taiwan’s Economic Planning Minister Fredrick Chien said.