United States Foreign Policy Japan

Once again, the United States and Japan have gone to the brink in a trade dispute and, at the last gasping moment, tiptoed back from it. Once again, Washington and Tokyo have managed to avoid letting commercial frictions undermine the essential bargain forged between them during the Cold War--that the United States would help guarantee Japan's security in exchange for the right to keep troops on Japanese soil. Now the question is whether that relationship can last--and for how long.

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 White House has concluded that it will be unable to reduce the growing trade deficit with Japan during President Clinton's first term and no longer considers doing so a key political objective, the Administration's chief trade negotiator indicated Friday. Instead of aiming for a specific reduction in the U.S.-Japan trade deficit, now about $60 billion a year, the Administration will emphasize Clinton's efforts to increase exports in select industries, U.S.

Despite President Clinton's tough talk about Japan's trade policy, the Administration appears to lack both a grand strategy and a day-by-day game plan for prying open Japan's markets, according to government sources and trade experts. In the aftermath of the unsuccessful talks Feb. 11 between Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, a senior U.S. official admitted privately a week later, "We've been trying to figure out what to do next."

Several years ago, when Tsutomu Hata was the agriculture minister in the Japanese government run by the Liberal Democrats, he drew a firm line: Not a grain of foreign rice would be allowed into Japan. Now, he is foreign minister in the governing coalition that overthrew the Liberal Democrats. And he is asking President Clinton to understand the political pressures his prime minister, Morihiro Hosokawa, is facing as the new government tries to redesign Japan's economic and political systems.

President Clinton's arrival in Tokyo this week for the annual meeting of the world's seven leading economic powers inevitably will focus attention on the new Administration's policy toward Japan and, more generally, Asia as a whole. But amid Tokyo's current political upheavals, Clinton's trip is likely to demonstrate that the Administration is having trouble coming to grips with Japan, the world's second-leading economic power, and with the dynamic East Asian region surrounding it.

The Clinton Administration, concerned about America's "increasingly corrosive" economic relationship with Japan, warned bluntly Monday that Tokyo must substantially reduce its global trade surplus if it wants to maintain free access to U.S. markets. Outlining the approach the Administration will take Friday when it opens talks intended to establish a new framework for the crucial U.S.-Japanese trade relationship, the officials declined to characterize their warning as an outright threat.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher told Japan's new foreign minister Tuesday that in the Clinton Administration, economics comes first--and that means a change in focus in the U.S. relationship with Japan. "This is a new period where economic relationships must be addressed with great intensity," Christopher told Foreign Minister Kabun Muto, according to an aide who was present at the hourlong meeting.

In one interview, presidential aspirant Ross Perot contends that America's foreign competitors, such as the Japanese, have "picked our pockets." In another, he says that one of the first things he would do in the White House would be to present Japan and Germany with bills for $50 billion apiece to offset U.S. defense costs for maintaining world stability. In a third, he calls President Bush's visit to Japan early this year "a joke."

Japan, apparently tired of being singled out as the "bad guy" of international trade, retaliated Monday in a report that accuses the United States of a range of unfair trade practices and violations of international trade rules. The report, released by Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry, accuses the United State of having restrictive trade policies in nine of 10 broad categories, contrasted with just six categories for South Korea and the European Community.