Mosbacher Optimistic About U.S.-Japan Trade

TOKYO —  Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher pleaded “guilty” Tuesday to Japanese charges that American business executives are “shortsighted” but said the United States and Japan “have a better chance to work out (their trade problems) than ever before.”

After flying here from South Korea, Mosbacher made the comments in an interview with NHK, the quasi-public national radio and TV network.

Asked how, as a former businessman, he would respond to Japanese charges that U.S. entrepreneurs are shortsighted, Mosbacher replied: “Guilty.”

“I think, in many cases, we are shortsighted, and I think the Japanese are correct in pointing that out to us,” he added.

As an example of how the United States was “trying to make some improvements,” he pointed to President Bush’s proposal for a cut in the capital gains tax rate for assets held or built up over a long term.

Doesn’t Blame Japan

Such a tax benefit, he said, “would make us think longer term. Business in America must think longer term.”

He also said the United States “must save more and reduce the cost of capital” to help cut the American trade deficit.

Although Mosbacher declared Monday in Seoul, South Korea, that “we have not seen movement (to open markets) in Japan,” he told NHK on Tuesday that he did not blame Japan for the continuing $50-billion bilateral American trade deficit.

“No, I don’t blame anyone,” he said. “I think we are beginning to work together. I think Japan sees that the United States government is more together on (its) desire to work out the trade problem.

“We see that Japan has more desire to work it out for their own sake, for their consumers and the future balance in the world. So I think we have a better chance to work it out than we ever had before.”

Backs Co-Development

Mosbacher denied that negotiations to remove “structural impediments” to trade that began last week in Tokyo were aimed at forcing the Japanese to “change their life style” or “to interfere with Japanese internal politics.”

Asked how the United States would try to catch up with Japanese technology in high-definition television (HDTV), which offers photograph-like reception on TV screens, Mosbacher said he favors Japanese-American co-development of HDTV if “circumstances” are “right.”

He did not elaborate.

“We think there is an opportunity to work together with Japanese companies and with American companies and find ways to develop standards in HDTV both in the United States and here that make sense,” he said.

In a meeting with Hikaru Matsunaga, minister of international trade and industry, Mosbacher also pushed the theme of collaboration between American and Japanese companies “to make technology and technological development truly a two-way street,” a U.S. official traveling with the secretary said.

Mosbacher and Matsunaga agreed to coordinate new U.S. export promotion and Japan import promotion policies and to start a new program of regular interchanges among technological experts.

To date, the Commerce Department and the ministry have had no exchanges of working-level experts, the U.S. officials said.

The meeting occurred as Japan announced trade results for August that showed that its imports from the United States rose 15.1% compared to the same month a year ago, while Japanese exports to the American market gained 5%.

The bilateral Japanese surplus for the month, the Ministry of Finance said, amounted to $3 billion.

Globally, Japan’s surplus in August totaled $3.4 billion on a customs clearance basis, a 31% decline from the same month last year, the ministry added.