Japan Says Quakes Bar Use of U.S. Wood

Japan argued in trade talks with the United States today that it cannot change building codes to allow the wider use of imported wood products because Japanese earthquakes are more severe than temblors in the United States.

U.S. participants charged that the Japanese are “stonewalling” the talks as the negotiators failed in their third day to reach an agreement on reducing Japan’s barriers to imports of processed lumber. The negotiators will meet again Thursday.

Barry Cullen, president of the National Forest Products Assn. and the U.S. industry representative at the talks, said the Japanese are stonewalling because they want to protect their own, less efficient lumber industry and do not want to change building codes that favor steel and concrete.

The Japanese negotiators argued that steel and concrete offer better protection from fires that may be caused by earthquakes, Cullen saidat a news conference.

“Japanese earthquakes are not different from American earthquakes and they are no excuse for not using wood for construction,” Cullen said.

In previous trade talks, the Japanese have argued that American skis cannot be allowed into Japan because the snow in Japan is different and that American beef cannot be freely imported because Japanese intestines are longer and would have difficulty digesting U.S. beef.

A year ago, President Bush listed lumber products, supercomputers and satellites as three specific areas in which Japan had put up unfair trade barriers.

Japan has agreed to open its market wider to supercomputers and satellites, but seven rounds of talks on lumber have failed to produce an agreement.

Japan imported $2.8 billion worth of wood products last year, but 70% of that was raw lumber.

U.S. producers want to export more processed-wood products and say they could sell $2 billion a year more of processed wood if the Japanese market was open.