Yeutter Scolds Japan on Effort to Retain Entire Rice Market

Agriculture Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter said today that Japan is acting inconsistently and unfairly if it truly expects to exempt its rice policy from world trade reform efforts.

“We just cannot conduct international trade policy in this manner,” Yeutter said in a sternly worded letter to Japanese Agriculture Minister Tomio Yamamoto.

Yeutter said he is troubled by published remarks in which Yamamoto accused the United States of meddling in Japanese affairs. A newspaper account, published a week ago, also quoted Yamamoto as disagreeing with Yeutter’s view that Japan will soon open its rice market to imports.

For years, Japan has followed a policy of self-sufficiency in rice and has allowed only a tiny amount of foreign rice to be imported.

In 1986 while he was trade ambassador in the Reagan Administration, Yeutter rejected U.S. rice industry complaints against Japan. His decision again in 1988 to dismiss the complaints was predicated on the expectation that rice would be handled as part of worldwide trade negotiations.

“Recent comments by Japanese officials that Japan will never liberalize its rice market are contrary to all the commitments that have been made by your country during the Uruguay Round (negotiating) process,” Yeutter wrote.