Japan Hedges Commitments on U.S. Cars : Trade: No firm deal on buying autos and parts, Toyota says. House Speaker calls American workers lazy and unproductive.
Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa and Toyota Motor Corp. Chairman Eiji Toyoda on Monday appeared to edge away from what seemed to be commitments to buy more American autos and auto parts, setting off acrimonious debate and new accusations of duplicity in the United States.
Meanwhile, Yoshio Sakurauchi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, said over the weekend that American workers are lazy and unproductive and that the reason their goods do not meet Japanese standards is because 30% of them cannot read.
Although the unrelated comments by the top officials received modest play in the Japanese press, they are sure to further inflame American passions against the Japanese, fueling hard-line sentiments that they are dishonest and arrogant.
And, just as presidential campaigning in New Hampshire kicks into high gear, the Japanese comments are likely to undermine President Bush’s efforts to paint his Asian trip two weeks ago as a success.
During his four-day visit to Japan ending Jan. 10, Bush extracted pledges from the Japanese to double their purchases of American auto parts from $9 billion to $19 billion by 1994. In a separate vow, Japan’s top five auto makers agreed to import 20,000 American cars. The auto issue dominated the Tokyo summit agenda, because autos and auto parts make up 75% of the $41-billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan.
But both actions were considered here to be “voluntary” pledges by the private sector, and at the time Japanese government officials cautioned that they had no power to enforce the agreements. Toyota showed similar caution, releasing a carefully worded statement that it is “prepared to negotiate” the import of 5,000 General Motors vehicles.
In Detroit, General Motors spokesman John Pekarek agreed with the Japanese that no concrete commitment had been made. “In terms of a direct agreement with Toyota, we never said we had a direct agreement,” Pekarek said. “They pledged they would ‘investigate’ selling 5,000 (American) cars.”
Yet it is clear that Bush and other American officials believed that they had brought more home from their Asian trip than a pledge. (The President declined to answer questions on the issue when asked on Monday, and the White House said there will be no further comment.)
On Monday, J. Michael Farren, undersecretary of commerce, warned the Japanese of a “very negative” reaction in the United States should the Japanese back off from their word. “It is not unusual for Japanese government officials to make what looks like a fairly basic commitment and then qualify it heavily at a later date,” he said.
In an interview with NHK, Japan’s national television network, Miyazawa said the Japanese pledges were “a target rather than a firm promise.” Toyoda, in a separate interview, said his company will “study and consider the possibility of selling GM cars.” He added, “It is too much to say we will actually sell them.”
Besides Toyota, Japan’s other four top auto makers--Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Mazda--had generally vowed to try to sell one American auto per domestic dealership during the year.
But the most provocative comments in recent days came from Sakurauchi, who told supporters at a New Year’s party on Sunday that the main reason for the bilateral trade friction was America’s inferior labor.
Sakurauchi, who is an outspoken conservative legislator and close ally of former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, criticized American workers for demanding high pay when their productivity was so low and added that, if the United States did not watch out, it would be “judged as finished by the world.”
“It is so sad that the U.S. begged the Japanese and became the auto makers’ subcontractor,” he said, adding that his intention was to inform Americans of Japanese expectations of high-quality goods.
Sakurauchi’s opinion is widely held in Japan, although it is not usually so forthrightly expressed by top leaders. The image of Americans being lazy, unproductive workers persists here, although U.S. employees have steadily increased their working hours since 1972 by an average of nine hours per year and work more hours than most other countries--with the exception of Japan, Taiwan and Korea.
American productivity is also No. 1 in the world, although the U.S. Department of Labor forecasts that it will fall behind Japan’s in a few years.
American political reaction to the comments was swift.
“I don’t think they’ll get away with it,” fumed Heinz Prechter, chairman of the Michigan-based auto supplier ASC Inc. He was one of the 21 executives who accompanied Bush to Japan. He said he had believed that the Tokyo agreement represented a firm commitment.
Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said the remarks from Tokyo underscore the need for his legislation to impose retaliatory penalties against the Japanese if they fail to cut their trade deficit with the United States.
Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.) likened the Japanese attitude toward Americans to those that led to the attack on Pearl Harbor and condemned Tokyo’s “trade-cheating.”
Anti-Japanese sentiment appears to have spread in the 10 days since Bush and the business executives returned home. “Buy American” campaigns have sprung up around the country. And on Jan. 11, protesters at the auto plant in Flat Rock, Mich., near Detroit, criticized the “Japanese takeover of the U.S. automobile industry.”
In Detroit, Owen Bieber, the head of the United Auto Workers, reacted angrily to Sakurauchi’s comments. He called them “bigoted,” adding: “The sad fact is this kind of insulting viewpoint toward Americans from the Japanese is a lot more common than many would like to believe.”
Times staff writer Amy Harmon in Detroit contributed to this report.
