No answer in trade controls, says Japan

Press, 1 September 1989, Page 8

No answer in trade controls, says Japan

NZPA-Reuter San Francisco The United States and Japan should avoid using the control of trade as a way to solve bilateral problems, the Japanese Prime Minister, Toshiki Kaifu, said in San Francisco yesterday. “It is hard to accept the hasty conclusion, formed in blind disregard of the facts, that trade between the United States and Japan should be controlled,” Mr Kaifu said in an address prepared for delivery to a dinner hosted by the Japan Society of Northern California. Mr Kaifu, who arrived in San Francisco on the first leg of a 12-day trip to the United States, Mexico and Canada, said both Washington and Tokyo must not be "so foolish” as to stifle the dynamism

that had given tremendous vitality to their economies. “We must avoid failing to see the forest for the trees,” he said, stressing the need to look at United States-Japanese relations in the wider, historical perspective. The Japanese premier, who took power three weeks ago, was scheduled to fly to Washington today, where he will meet the United States President, George Bush, on Friday. The meeting with Mr Bush comes amid intensifying frustration in Washington over Japan’s growing trade surplus. Tokyo posted a SUSS2.I billion (S88.30B) trade surplus with the United States in 1988, accounting for nearly half the total

SUSII9.BB ($2038) United States trade deficit. Mr Kaifu said he acknowledged various frictions had arisen between the United States and Japan, and that they were now causing them to criticise each other in ever louder voices.

“At all costs, we must not allow such frictions to rock the foundations of our bilateral bond. It is the duty of both our peoples, to the world and to history, to keep friendly US-Japan relations,” Mr Kaifu said.

But in spite of such conflicts, Mr Kaifu said he was optimistic about future United StatesJapanese relations, noting Japan had chosen to seek its national survival and development through close co-operation with America.