Japan Hints It May Ease Curbs on U.S. Products : Trade: Official offers no details on opening markets. Bush departs today on Asian trip including Tokyo stop.
On the eve of President Bush’s 12-day trip to the Pacific Rim, the Japanese government indicated Sunday that it might yield to some Administration demands to open more of its markets to U.S. products.
But while hinting that Japan would adopt a more conciliatory stand, a senior Japanese official offered no specific details, and it was far from clear whether any such concessions would be enough to allow Bush to claim political success by the end of his journey.
Confronted with economic trouble at home as he departs on the 26,000-mile overseas trip today, Bush is certain to be judged on whether he can make good on a pledge to create “good jobs for Americans” by opening more Asian markets to U.S.-made goods.
Despite the apparent effort by Tokyo on Sunday to ease his task, there was no sign that Japan might agree to allow imports of U.S. rice or to increase further its purchases of U.S. auto parts--two of the Administration’s top demands.
At the same time, in a joint television appearance, high-level U.S. and Japanese officials bluntly disagreed on the politically charged question of Japan’s responsibility for current U.S. economic problems.
Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher said that, “by not allowing U.S. goods into Japan,” the Japanese prevent the creation of more jobs in America. But Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Koji Watanabe sharply denied that his nation’s trade practices are to blame for the moribund U.S. economy.
The exchange between the two officials on NBC’s “Meet the Press” underscored the tension behind Bush’s forthcoming journey and served as another sign that economics has replaced goodwill as the main theme of his trip.
In a sign of new willingness to give Bush a helping hand, Watanabe said that his nation is seriously studying ways to “facilitate expansion of U.S. exports to Japan.”
He indicated that such measures could include changes in industrial standards that favor Japanese products and new encouragement to Japanese car makers to purchase U.S.-made parts for so-called “transplants”--Japanese cars fabricated in the United States.
But he gave no indication that his government will reverse its decision to maintain a prohibition on imports of U.S. rice. And because Japan’s 11 car manufacturers already pledged early this month to nearly double purchases of U.S. auto parts, it was unclear whether such trade could increase much further.
Watanabe also maintained a defiant stand on the question of Japan’s car exports, saying that his nation has no intention of curbing auto shipments.
In his television appearance with the U.S. commerce secretary, Watanabe indicated that his government has been told that Bush does not want such restraint, despite calls by the Big Three U.S. auto makers for new quotas on Japanese imports.
Mosbacher did not disagree, responding instead by repeating the U.S. commitment to “free trade. . . . But free trade includes fair trade and that means . . . market access for U.S. companies,” he said.
Bush’s travels begin with a four-day stop in Australia, where he arrives Tuesday. He then goes to Singapore for two days, to South Korea for two more and finally to Japan on Jan. 7. He returns home Jan. 10.
Rather than use the trip to cement diplomatic ties, as originally intended, Bush plans to dwell primarily on trade in each of the four countries. The issue, however, will be most important in Japan, which maintains a $40 billion trade surplus with the United States.
To underscore his concern, Bush will be accompanied in Korea and Japan by 21 top U.S. business executives, including the chairmen of the three major U.S. auto companies.
And from Tokyo, where initially he had planned to play tennis with Emperor Akihito, the President will instead travel to a “Toys R Us” store to highlight his determination that more such U.S. ventures be permitted to operate in Japan.
With Bush under criticism from both the left and the right for his preoccupation with foreign affairs, his decision to take yet another overseas journey poses substantial political risks. But he has insisted that there will be domestic dividends if he can force the nation’s Asian trading partners to lift their barriers to U.S. goods.
“On this trip we’re going to be talking about breaking open markets that shut out American products, American business and in the process deny us the opportunity to create more good American jobs,” he said Friday night in Beeville, Tex.
“Those countries must open their markets to American products,” he added to applause from residents at the Beeville County rodeo arena.
Lurking in the background during Bush’s trip is the specter of new Democratic-backed trade legislation that would force Japan to slash its car sales to the United States by more than one-third unless Japan moves to cut the trade gap by 20% a year over five years.
The sponsor of the bill, House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), said Sunday that, without some new understanding between the United States and Japan, “we’re going to just be met with the same continuing problem, and that is the Japanese have free and easy access to our market.”
“They can sell their products here almost without any kind of impediment,” Gephardt said in an interview on CNN’s Newsmaker Sunday, “and we can’t sell our products there on an equal basis.”
In expressing sympathy with that view--a theme voiced by both Democratic and Republican challengers to Bush’s reelection bid--Mosbacher said Sunday that claims the U.S. recession was made in Japan are “partly correct.”
But Watanabe rejected that argument, noting that the U.S. trade deficit with his country actually has fallen from $50 billion a year in 1985 to about $40 billion a year now.
The trip Bush that begins today originally was planned for November. It was canceled, however, when his standings in opinion polls plummeted and when former Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, a Republican, lost a Pennsylvania Senate race in an election that focused on Bush’s seeming attention to foreign affairs at the expense of domestic issues.
Bush’s Trip 1) AUSTRALIA: Dec. 31 to Jan. 3; Sidney, Canberra, Melbourne 2) SINGAPORE: Jan. 3 to 5 3) S. KOREA: Jan. 5 to 7; Seoul 4) JAPAN: Jan. 7 to 10; Kyoto, Nara, Tokyo
