Japan Auto Talks May Be Off the Mark --- `Access' Isn't the Only Gripe And for Chrysler, GM, It Isn't High on the List
TOKYO -- For some time, U.S. trade negotiators, hoping to cut America's trade deficit, have been pushing Japan to get its dealerships to stock more U.S. cars. Trouble is, two of Detroit's Big Three auto makers say they won't take advantage of the access even if Washington's trade negotiators win.</br></br>Chrysler Corp. Chairman Robert J. Eaton says Chrysler is too busy elsewhere to mount a big push in costly Japan, despite the success of the right-hand-drive Jeep Cherokee it sells there through Honda Motor Co. "We have capacity limitations, so why bother?" Mr. Eaton said in a recent interview.</br></br>General Motors Corp. executives in Tokyo maintain that the primary obstacle in Japan isn't dealer access, but high real estate prices, something neither Japan nor the U.S. can settle through negotiation. GM -- whose most popular car in Japan, the Opel, is made in Germany -- sells cars through an independent company specializing in foreign vehicles.</br></br>Ford Motor Co. is the only one of the Big Three likely to follow through if Washington extracts new access from the Japanese in trade talks set to resume in Tokyo later this month.</br></br>Spurred by the introduction of right-hand-drive models, Big Three exports to Japan rose 50% in 1994 to 57,357 vehicles, including vehicles made at American-owned factories in Europe. U.S. officials say American car makers would sell far more if only given better access to Japanese consumers. Foreign car sales in Japan, they note, accounted for only 8% of the total passenger car market in 1994. "We're not looking at what they [American car makers] are able to do now while they're handicapped, but what they could do if the system were open," says a U.S. Embassy spokesman.