78-07-A2

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Japan II

Transcript When we left the U.S. on our recent 'round-the-world trip the matter of our unfavorable balance of trade with Japan was an almost daily headline in the news. In a number of circles there was a growing animosity toward Japan; charges of dumping product on our market at less than cost; and demands for protectionism--tariffs, quotas or outright bans on some imports. Let me give you another view of this problem; how it looks from the other side of the Pacific. I met with Japanese business leaders who are also concerned about the trade imbalance even though it is in their favor. They are worried about the voices demanding protectionism and not from the selfish view that it will be directed against them alone. They hear Japanese voices demanding protection against our exports to Japan. Protectionism is a two-way street and they know that once started it ends in a demand for retaliation. Japanese industrialists believe in free trade and they are not building their export supremacy on slave labor wages. While they have not yet reached our own wage scale they are not far from it and their wages are higher than in such other industrial nations as Britain, France and West Germany. Not too long ago if you'll recall, Japan sent a trade mission to our country to buy several billion dollars worth of American goods to help reduce our trade imbalance. But they said to me "Why should we have to do that? Why aren't your business men over here trying to sell us these things?" That's a pretty good question. The truth is, they don't see us "Yankee Traders" trying as hard as we once did, agressively seeking a market in Japan for our goods. Let me give~ couple of examples I saw for myself. The Japanese, like the English, drive on the left hand side of the road. Naturally their automobiles are built with the steering wheel on the right. Now take a look at those Toyotas, Datsuns and Hondas you see every day on our streets. They were built with a left hand steering wheel for American style driving. In Japan when you see a Japanese driving an American car he does so with the inconvenience of, a steering wheel on the wrong side for Japanese roads. By the way, it's also true in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand. One of the Japanese business leaders said he had asked our auto makers about that and they said it was too much trouble to build cars with a right hand drive. The Japanese make every effort to understand us and our American ways. What effort have we made to understand the Japanese and their way of doing things? Every graduate of a Japanese high school has had six y ears of English. In our country our students will not only learn no Japanese--a lot of them will have to take a college course called "Bonehead English" so they can understand our own language. The men I talked with have the friendliest feeling for us and hope desperately that we can solve our energy problem by reducing our dependence on imported oil. Japan is totally dependent on imported oil which should make us skeptical of those who blame the Arabs for our falling dollar. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 78-07-A2 Production Date 05/15/1978 Book/Page RihoH-287 Audio Youtube? No
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