NEWS ANALYSIS : U.S. Drives More Than Hard Bargain With Japan

After 35 years of politely asking Japan to open its market to U.S. products, the United States has turned to playing hardball--and the outcome, win or lose, could transform one of the world’s most important relationships.

All through the Cold War, governments in Tokyo often resisted U.S. pressure on trade, knowing that American presidents were more interested in maintaining military bases in Japan than selling automobile parts there.

But that logic has changed. The Clinton Administration has bluntly told Tokyo that its foreign policy goals are primarily economic, not military--and that, consequently, it now feels freer to press hard for trade concessions.

In this case, the Administration has warned formally that it will impose a punitive 100% tariff on Japanese luxury cars unless Tokyo agrees to a U.S. demand that more foreign automobiles and auto parts be sold in Japan.

But U.S. officials have made it clear that they believe basic rules of the U.S.-Japanese relationship are changing--and the automobile dispute is only the most visible result.

“The Cold War is over,” U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor told the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday. “In the past, trade was a tool of our foreign policy, advancing political and strategic interests. . . . Now that policy has run its course.”

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, whose department once could be counted on to side with Japan’s Foreign Ministry against hard-nosed trade tactics, reinforced Kantor’s message.

“We cannot go ahead . . . with a relationship that is entirely sound if one leg of the stool is in as bad repair as the economic situation is,” he said.

Kantor, Christopher and President Clinton have emphasized that they want to keep the trade confrontation within manageable bounds to prevent it from turning into a more serious rupture between allies.

U.S. experts long have feared that if a trade dispute spiraled into a full-scale trade war, Japanese politicians might argue that their export-wealthy nation no longer needs its close political and military ties with the United States--an alliance that, in both countries’ view, has been an essential ingredient for peace in Asia.

Indeed, some apocalyptic pundits point out that the last U.S. war with Japan originated partly in disputes over trade--although the circumstances were very different: The military-ruled Japanese empire was seeking control over the natural resources of China and Southeast Asia, and the United States responded with embargoes on oil and steel.

So far, the latest conflict--despite heated rhetoric on both sides--has remained under control.

The U.S. threat of tariffs may have been the trade equivalent of an air strike, but it has not touched off a full-scale war.

“Both sides have been handling this pretty calmly,” a State Department official said Wednesday. “The Japanese have said that they don’t intend to retaliate” against the U.S. tariff threat, “and they have said it’s important to keep this in perspective as a trade dispute.”

Nevertheless, when Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord lands in Tokyo today for a visit, part of his mission will be to reassure the Japanese--again--that the United States still considers their nation to be a valued friend and military ally.

In the short term, he is likely to succeed. If this trade dispute follows the pattern of earlier ones, the governments will go back to negotiating soon and work out a compromise before the threatened tariffs take effect on June 28--perhaps by the time Clinton meets with Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama at an economic summit in Halifax, Canada, on June 15.

And no immediate harm will have been done to the security relationship that allows the United States to station 44,000 troops in Japan, mostly at Tokyo’s expense, and count on Japanese support on regional problems such as the effort to persuade North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons program.

But the bruises of this debate could change the relationship in a more subtle way, contributing to what some say is a long-term alienation between the two countries.

“The United States says, ‘Don’t worry, we’re still your defense partner,’ ” said James A. Auer, a former Pentagon official now at Vanderbilt University. “But these disputes create a kind of background mood and the Japanese begin to ask themselves whether they can still trust the United States.”

The real question for the United States is whether it has chosen the right point on which to put its economic interests first, and whether it can handle the difficult trick of fighting with Japan over trade while cooperating over security.

On those points, officials and experts are divided.

“I think that can be done, but the tactics have to be different,” Auer said. “With Asians, you can’t insult them in public and expect to make a deal in private. It has to be the other way around.”

Joseph A. Massey, a trade expert at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, disagreed.

“Should the United States be worried here about ruining a relationship with a valued ally? No,” he said. “You have to be able to pursue your own economic interest, and the end of the Cold War means that the United States is now freer to do that.”

In that sense, the U.S.-Japan trade battle mirrors rising disagreements with other great powers that the United States counts among its friends: Russia, China, France, even Britain.

Without the pressure of the Cold War to bind allies--or, in the case of Russia, to divide adversaries--foreign policy has become an ambiguous, uncomfortable mix of cooperation and conflict.

Whatever the foreign policy risks, however, Clinton has encountered virtually no domestic opposition to his tough tactics toward Japan.

Times staff writer Melissa Healy contributed to this report.