U.S. Will Take Harder Line With Japan : Trade: With the ruling party basking in this week’s election victory, American negotiators plan to stop soft-pedaling at talks starting today.

The United States is expected to toughen its stance in sweeping trade talks with Japan later this week following last Sunday’s decisive election victory by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, U.S. negotiators said.

The new, harder-line strategy will affect three sets of talks, the first beginning today, when negotiators resume broad-ranging “structural impediments” discussions in which Washington wants Japan to overhaul its business practices to make its economy more receptive to imports.

Early next week, the two sides are scheduled to take up U.S. allegations that Japan is acting unfairly on trade in satellites, supercomputers and forest products--a set of complaints that Washington filed last spring under new, tougher unfair trading practices legislation.

A third set of negotiations will focus on a number of U.S. complaints about Japanese restrictions on foreign construction services, telecommunications equipment and shipbuilding and on what the U.S. side says is Tokyo’s refusal to adequately protect intellectual property rights.

In each case, Japan faces deadlines under which the United States is poised to retaliate if Tokyo does not make concessions. U.S. Trade Representative Carla A. Hills has demanded that Japan present a “blueprint” in April on the structural changes it will make.

The intensification of pressure marks a change in tactics by Washington. At Tokyo’s request, the United States had been holding its fire to avoid disrupting the Japanese election. There had been fears that excessive U.S. pressure might weaken the grip of the Liberal Democratic Party.

But now, with the ruling party decisively back in power, U.S. officials said they will press the U.S. case more vigorously, both publicly and privately. This week’s talks originally had been scheduled for mid-January but were put off until after Sunday’s election.

Political tensions in both countries are rising as a result of intensified trade frictions. Congress has threatened to pass restrictive legislation if Japan fails to open its markets, and some Japanese have advocated reducing some links with Washington.

The so-called structural impediments talks, launched by the Bush Administration last June, are designed to attack the underlying causes of the trade imbalance between the two countries and, it is hoped, to get both governments to agree to take steps to deal with it.

The United States wants Tokyo to open Japan’s goods-distribution system to more imports, enforce its antitrust laws more vigorously, stop pricing imports excessively high, overhaul its land-use policies and end bid rigging and other collusive practices that shut out imports.

At the same time, Japan wants Washington to move more aggressively to eliminate its budget deficit, spur more saving and investment and improve the education and training of workers to make the U.S. work force more competitive.

In the subsequent talks, the United States wants Japan to end current restrictions on government procurement of U.S.-built supercomputers and satellites and to eliminate so-called standards that shut out processed lumber products milled in America.

U.S. officials said they still have no advance indication of how far Tokyo is willing to move, either in the structural impediments talks or in the negotiations involving supercomputers, satellites and forest products.

Japanese negotiators had promised that they would begin bargaining seriously once the election was behind them, making a special effort to meet the U.S. deadlines for concluding the talks. Washington wants an interim report by mid-April and an end to the talks in June.

Congress is expected to react sharply if Japan is perceived as intransigent in the structural impediments talks. Lawmakers are angry because the U.S. trade deficit with Japan has remained unchanged at about $50 billion for three years.

The Administration also will be under pressure to “retaliate” against Japan if the two sides cannot reach agreement by mid-June on the disputes involving satellites, supercomputers and forest products. That, in turn, could exacerbate tensions on both sides.

U.S. officials said Tuesday they still had not decided what action to take if these talks break down. So far, U.S. negotiators expect to reach agreements on satellites and forest products, but the talks involving supercomputers are at an impasse.

Worse yet, from Tokyo’s viewpoint, even if the Japanese settle these and other pending disputes, the Administration will be under pressure next month and in April to launch new cases that will require still-further negotiations.