President Asks Japanese To Discuss `Rigidities'; Cultural Differences Pose Barriers, Officials Say
Japanese save their money at four times the rate of Americans. They maintain a distribution system that favors small mom-and-pop neighborhood stores over shopping malls. And close ties between Japanese manufacturers and their suppliers make it hard for new companies-foreign or domestic-to break in.</br></br>But the Bush administration, calling them "structural rigidities" that serve as major obstacles to U.S. imports, yesterday formally asked Japan to begin a series of negotiations to change them. And to underline the importance of the initiative, President Bush gave it his imprimatur by announcing it as he was leaving for Europe yesterday, one day after U.S. Trade Representative Carla A. Hills had first revealed it.</br></br>It was seen by Japanese officials and some U.S. analysts as a way to soften the blow of naming Japan an unfair trading nation under the tough new trade law, under which Japan, Brazil and India were singled out Thursday as nations with persistent barriers to trade.</br></br>Officials said the structural-barriers initiative, proposed by Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady, would be separate from negotiations over specific Japanese trade barriers.</br></br>Administration officials emphasized there were no penalties or timetables attached to this initiative; the trade law provision requires an end to barriers within three years under the threat of trade sanctions.