If You Want Examples of Managed Trade . . . : Geopolitics: Europe should join with the U.S. in trying to open Japan’s market.

It shouldn’t escape our attention (that) the European Union has been just as frustrated as the United States in opening the Japanese market, but . . . it also is a matter of course that the Europeans are always delighted when they can hold our coats and we can go out and get our noses bloodied. But we’re happy to do that, we understand our obligations to run interference for the (European) Union.

Let me say with regard to the Union, it’s interesting that there have been some (European) voices . . . that have said our approach in the (Japan-U.S.) framework . . . is managed trade. First of all, I’m not sure what managed trade is. Is managed trade when you have a voluntary restraint on automobiles and trucks at 16% in Europe, including transplant production? Naw, that wouldn’t be managed trade, would it? No, because the Europeans did it. Now when they do it, that’s protecting their markets and making sure it’s fair. When we do it--the largest open market in the world, who led Bretton Woods and GATT, have kept (our) markets open since the Second World War, who’ve led global growth, who have a President who made sure there was a Uruguay Round . . . who made sure there was a NAFTA, who made sure we’re trying to open up Japanese markets--that’s not good enough. But we could have a voluntary restraint, we can have a procurement directive (as) in Europe, which says if you don’t have 50% European content, you can be arbitrarily excluded from a bid--but that’s not managed trade, that’s good, common sense. We can have a broadcast directive that says you have to have at least 50% European content on television to protect European culture. Well, it’s interesting. Are we protecting British culture or Portuguese or German? I’m trying to figure out what European culture is.

So every time the United States wants to go out there and make sure we lead global growth or we try to open markets, and the Europeans believe they sort of can come in in our wake, they don’t want to stand with us. Every time it’s in their interest, of course, to engage in behavior which is not opening their markets, that’s justified.

We all need to . . . work on a multilateral basis . . . to make sure we open the second-largest economy in the world. This is not ganging up on the Japanese; this is in everyone’s interest, including the Japanese government’s for the Japanese people.

So we stand ready . . . to trilateralize or multilateralize these talks. We welcome anyone’s joining in and making sure we do this on a reasonable basis, but what we don’t look for is criticism from those who sit on the sidelines. And this is not a game anymore, folks. See, we’re talking about real jobs for real people, and for a European Union that’s suffering . . . with 12% unemployment, I would only suggest they should work with us as we’re willing to work with them as great allies to make sure we open markets around the world.