Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 6, 1990                   TAG: 9003061780
SECTION: NATL.INTL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

OFFICIALS: JAPAN TRADE WAR LOOMS

Two key senators made similar comments, suggesting a protectionist trade war, as Bush administration negotiators admitted making "little progress" so far in cracking Japanese trade bars.

The negotiators said that it is too soon to predict whether President Bush's weekend summit with Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu will produce results but that the Japanese now "must move rapidly to provide solutions."

Hills, answering questions after a speech, said, "There's no question that Japan has gained its economic well-being from worldwide trade and worldwide investment.

"And if it fails to open its markets to the same extent to our entrepreneurs as our markets are open to Japanese entrepreneurs they risk having our market closed or at least be gravely limited, and therein risk killing the goose that laid their golden egg as well as ours."

The senators, meanwhile, said there could be a trade war if Tokyo does not bow to U.S. demands in the "structural impediments talks" before the next economic summit in July in Houston.

"Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States is rising fast," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. "Japan has a choice. It can either follow the lead of the rest of the world and open its markets or it can keep its markets closed and have the rest of the world follows its lead."

Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., said the Bush administration "has done nothing yet to warrant congratulations" on getting Japan to open its markets.

But, Under Secretary of State Richard McCormack said U.S. negotiators avoided pressuring Japan in the first three rounds of talks to prevent the issues from becoming "political footballs" in Japan's parliamentary election last month.

J. Michael Farren, the Commerce Department's under secretary for trade, said the U.S. trade deficit with Japan has improved by only $7.3 billion, less than 15 percent, since 1987. At the same time, he said, the U.S. deficit with West Germany has declined by half. With Korea, Taiwan and other East Asian countries it is down by 29 percent.