THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 5, 1995 TAG: 9503040011
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
The recent report by our Commerce Department indicating a huge negative foreign-trade imbalance with Japan and China should be very disturbing to our administration and Congress. While Japan's negative balance is twice as large as China's, all of the pressure by our trade negotiator, Mickey Kanter, appears to be on China.
Have we capitulated to the Japanese, convinced that we cannot make it open its markets to us and level the economic playing field? Our most capable negotiators have asked them to open their markets to American factories, farm products, insurance and engineering companies, etc., but to no avail. Yet China, with a potential consumer market of more than a billion people for our export, was threatened with a penalty, averted on the last day.
This is not to say that China should be allowed to continue it's copyright and patent dishonesty. But why have we allowed Japan, with a much smaller consumer potential market, to laugh all the way to the bank with a $65 billion trade surplus by finding devious ways to stonewall our negotiators?
Is our government afraid that the Japanese will dump the golf courses, hotels, farmland, and key real estate on a soft real-estate market? We are concerned that they will close some of their automobile factories in their most lucrative market? Or that they may dump their huge holdings of U.S. treasury bills on Wall Street?
Not likely. With their own soft economy and the American dollar at its lowest rate of exchange with the yen, there is no chance that the Japanese would risk such losses on its investments. Its farmers protest the purchase of American farm products. Our automobiles are overpriced on showroom floors, as are all American-made products. Our construction and engineering companies are not allowed to bid on government contracts. And yet our markets are wide open.
The difference appears to be that China threatened retaliation and Japan gives us a toothy smile and sends our negotiators home with promises. Their files and trash cans must be filled with negotiating contracts and deals that never are signed and delivered to Washington.
MILTON H. KAPLAN
Norfolk, Feb. 27, 1995 by CNB