Japan Criticizes U.S. for Its Strategy on Balancing Trade

In the countdown to a U.S. sanctions deadline, Japan criticized the United States on Friday for pursuing a managed-trade strategy that has helped stir “frustration and distrust” between the world’s richest economies.

Trade Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto issued his attack--along with plenty of promises to reform the Japanese economy--as negotiators completed two days of talks in Los Angeles in pursuit of an elusive trade truce to ward off a Sept. 30 showdown.

U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor and Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono met Thursday, and lower-level U.S. and Japanese officials met Friday. Neither side reported advances during this week’s talks.

Hashimoto arrived in town Friday for talks between the four big economic powers--the United States, Japan, Canada and the European Union--whose trade ministers were to meet Friday evening and start debating how best to advance the cause of global free trade.

But those “Quad” meetings, to begin in earnest over the weekend, were all but overshadowed by the transpacific standoff.

At issue: Japan’s $131-billion trade surplus and how to crack open the world’s No. 2 economy. Tokyo accuses the U.S. team of trying to micro-manage business, a strategy it says is anathema to free trade.

Japan says the U.S. insistence on yardsticks to measure how far it opens markets will lead to quotas for U.S. exporters and amounts to trade by government decree.

Hashimoto, pledging “the birth of a new Japan,” said his coalition government is committed to reform and delivering consumers a better deal. Both sides, he said, must battle the “frustration and distrust” spawned by the dispute.