Washington instead pinned the unfair trader label on South Korea for policies that limit sales of imported cars and trucks. U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky did announce that, in addition to taking Canada, the European Union and Australia to the WTO over specific export subsidies, Washington would ask the international trade arbiter to rule on the WTO consistency of Tokyo's requirement for varietal testing of U.S. produce subject to quarantine treatment. The predictability of the Japan part of the 1997 Super 301 watch list also suggests continuation of the current policy thrust. Barriers impeding U.S. access to Japan's markets for cars and trucks and replacement vehicle parts did show up here at the formal request of an increasingly frustrated American Automobile Manufacturers Association, the trade group for the Big Three. Not much arm-twisting was required.
Automotive products are the main source of the widening transpacific trade imbalance.
Moreover, the Clinton administration gradually has moved closer to AAMA's position that the June 1995 bilateral automotive agreement is not working as expected. Washington also included flat glass among the candidates for future trade action. That designation bordered on the reflexive. Separate late summer letters from 26 senators and 53 members of the House of Representatives to Mr. Clinton urging the White House to insist that Tokyo implement the arrangement's terms sealed the fate of flat glass as a Super 301 watch list entry. Paper and paper products rounded out a self-evident trio of Japan market access problems flagged for possible targeting down the road.