Kantor stresses talks with Japan on auto trade

Kantor stresses talks with Japan on auto trade

WASHINGTON (Kyodo): The United States will continue to seek an accord on auto trade with Japan through negotiations rather than press Tokyo with retaliatory threats, U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said Friday.

''We have said before that we will not wait forever, which we won't. But the preferred route is through negotiations and I would be pleased if that was the result of the discussion,'' Kantor said in an interview with Kyodo News Service.

Highlighting his message throughout the interview of using negotiations to resolve the impasse with Japan, Kantor brushed off reports that the U.S. is ready to slap a list of items subject to Section 301 trade sanctions as early as May.

''I think it is unfortunate if people are engaging in threats at this point. We are not doing that,'' Kantor stressed.

''We are merely saying that we are committed to opening this (Japanese auto) market and we hope to do it by negotiations if possible,'' he said.

Kantor also voiced his strong wish to hold a bilateral meeting with Japanese Minister of Trade and Indusrty Ryutaro Hashimoto who has expressed reluctance to do so during a ''quad'' four-way trade ministers' conference in Whistler, near Vancouver, Canada in early May.

If Hashimoto will agree to such a meeting, ''I would be pleased to meet with him,'' Kantor said.

On Thursday, Hashimoto told reporters that he will decide whether to meet one-on-one with Kantor after expert-level talks are held next week in Tokyo. ==More

Kantor said, ''If for whatever reason he (Hashimoto) thinks it not in Japan's interest to carry on these discussion, of course that is his decision and not mine.''

But he stressed, ''I am prepared to meet with him, obviously,'' indicating his expectations for progress in the Tokyo working-level meeting next week.

Kantor apparently took the softer approach to diffuse disputes between vice ministers earlier this week that was feared by currency dealers as a sign of a looming trade war. The dollar briefly plunged below 80 yen in Tokyo trading Wednesday for the first time in postwar history on speculation that the U.S. will use the dollar-yen rate to threaten Japan.

Kantor refused direct comments on the impact of the trade talks on currency exchange rates, but he voiced concern about both economies.

''Failure to recognize this problem will have an adverse effect on both the United States and Japan,'' he said.

With the subcabinet consultation failing to produce major progress, U.S. negotiators said Washington is prepared to resort to ''other options'' to resolve the talks. Japanese officials countered by stressing their readiness to bring the case to the new global watchdog World Trade Organization (WTO) to serve as a ''referee'' if the U.S. takes retaliatory actions.

The U.S. initiated a yearlong Section 301 probe under its trade laws into Japan's replacement parts market last October, with a deadline for possible sanctions set for Sept. 30. U.S. officials have recently said the U.S. is preparing to move up the deadline.

Kantor said, ''We haven't had a trade war in the world in 60 years and I don't expect we are going to have one now.''

On the controversial U.S. demand for renewed voluntary plans by Japanese automakers to buy foreign parts, Kantor indicated that he will continue to seek Japanese commitment on the issue, but declined to comment on whether Washington is ready to propose anything new to Japanese negotiators.

Calling Japan's insistence in rejecting such voluntary plans as ''contradictory,'' Kantor said the Japanese government says on the one hand ''with Europe they have export restraints. With the United States they don't want to be involved in market controls.''

''There will be no total agreement without all three being addressed,'' Kantor said, pointing to the need for Japan to open its finished auto, original equipment auto parts and secondary markets.

The auto and auto parts areas are the only sectors unsolved among the three priority areas under the bilateral framework negotiations.

Asked whether the U.S. is thinking of a new formula for renewing voluntary plans, Kantor said, ''I am not going to negotiate the specifics in public. I think that would not be fair to my Japanese colleagues nor would it be helpful to negotiations.''