Tired Ideas in a Shiny New Box : Japan’s latest trade plan does little to address Washington’s concerns

Japan is striving to put trade talks with the United States back on track with a so-called “new” set of market-opening initiatives. Too bad the effort does not live up to Tokyo’s stated intentions. The half-baked plan unveiled Tuesday is widely perceived as a mere repackaging of the vague, unsatisfactory proposals rejected by Washington last month when U.S.-Japan trade talks collapsed.

The new plan is notable on two counts: Missing are the numerical targets or trade goals that have become a defining element in U.S.-Japan talks under the Clinton Administration. The omission is in line with Tokyo’s well-honed campaign to portray as “managed trade” President Clinton’s quest for results in the effort to reduce the $60-billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan. Should Washington balk at the latest Japanese plan, Tokyo surely will cry foul and claim the United States is violating the spirit of free trade in seeking quantitative and qualitative results. Clever--but misleading.

Secondly, who are the Japanese to complain of managed trade? Tokyo practices its own thinly veiled version of what it complains about. Even though Japan has dismantled many formal barriers, imports face major administrative and other hassles in entering Japanese markets.

In 1991 Tokyo was willing to commit to fairly specific trade goals with Europe. Japan agreed to freeze car exports to Europe at 1.23 million units a year until 1999, in return for being allowed to increase the number of cars produced by Japanese factories within the European Community fivefold. Two years later Tokyo even agreed to further cuts in its car exports to Europe because of a slump in car sales in the EC.

In short, Japan conveniently agrees to goals when it comes to exporting but not importing. Curious. Sounds a bit like managed trade.

Enough. The rhetoric, including the sometimes abrasive tone of U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, distracts from the real issue: true results in reducing the U.S.-Japan trade imbalance. Tokyo should help define those results instead of fighting them. Its latest plan, however good Tokyo’s intentions might be, does little to advance the dialogue.