Japan at Top of a Long List of U.S. Trade Office Complaints

The U.S. Trade Representative complained bitterly Friday about a lack of progress in car talks with Japan, while taking issue with China and a slew of other countries on trade practices.

The trade office released its 10th annual report on trade barriers around the world. It includes a long list of complaints against Japan, which takes up the most pages, and other countries whose practices shut out foreign goods.

But U.S. Trade Representative general counsel Ira Shapiro had some positive news about the global trade outlook despite chronic U.S. deficits. He said at a news conference that open market agreements were making a dent.

“Thanks in large part to these agreements, trade barriers around the world are, in general, coming down,” Shapiro said at a news conference.

Japan was singled out for special attention because of the size of the U.S. deficit with it, $66 billion out of a total $166 billion U.S. merchandise trade shortfall last, and the long list of U.S. grievances--40 pages out of 320.

“Foreign market penetration in areas such as construction, automobiles, telecommunications and financial services has been artificially low by any standard,” the report complained.

The report said some progress had been made in tearing down Japan’s trade barriers, but that many barriers across a spectrum of goods remain.