Americans tend to favor retaliation while the Japanese tend to believe that enough has already been done to improve trade.
Voluntary Quotas
Most American respondents (58%) opposed President Reagan's decision earlier this year to lift his demand for voluntary quotas on Japanese autos. The same percentage also called for the U.S. government to put more pressure on Japan to ease its trade barriers.
When given a choice of what general types of measures would be most effective in reducing the U.S. trade deficit with Japan, two in five of the American respondents preferred import restrictions on Japanese products, while 30% chose better access to Japanese markets and 22% picked voluntary quotas on Japanese products.
When asked their opinion on specific measures against the Japanese, the highest percentage of Americans (84%) favored negotiating an agreement to allow more American products into Japan, followed by requiring Japanese companies who sell in the United States to open factories here (77%), requiring Japanese products sold in the United States to contain a specified amount of American-made parts (67%), and a special tariff on Japanese products (50%).
By contrast, the Japanese opposed all but one of these measures, with only the requirement that Japanese build factories in the United States receiving majority approval.
HOW THE PUBLIC VIEWS U.S.-JAPAN RELATIONS
U.S JAPAN U.S.-Japan relations Better 17% 16% over last 1 1/2 years: Same 52 48 Worse 15 26 Japan and U.S. are: Friendly 80 65 Unfriendly 9 22 Purchased other Yes 57 32 nation's product No 39 65 within past three years: Quality of Japan's Higher 27 62 products compared Same 48 20 to U.S. products: Lower 18 5 Government protects Japan protects more 63 43 industries more: Same 11 23 U.S. protects more 16 16 Japanese trade Japanese more fair 3 25 policies: Equally fair 33 32 Japanese less fair 46 18 U.S. government Too much pressure 7 45 pressure Right amount 26 33 on Japan Not enough 58 9 Japan blamed for Unfairly 35 44 trade crisis: Not unfairly 44 40 Japan should open Favor 77 55 American factories: Oppose 19 27 Japanese products Favor 67 38 should contain Oppose 28 43 American parts: Special tariff on Favor 50 26 Japanese products Oppose 41 51 in U.S.: Japanese government Favor 84 39 allow more U.S. pro- Oppose 12 41 ducts into Japan:
Note: figures may not add up to 100% because "don't know" responses are not included.
