Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

252 • U.S.–JAPAN FRAMEWORK TALKS ON BILATERAL TRADE
CULCON’s recommendations and proposals, a joint Japan–U.S.
working group has been established whenever needed.
U.S.–JAPAN FRAMEWORK TALKS ON BILATERAL TRADE.
These bilateral trade talks are extension of the Structural Impediments
Initiative (SII). In April 1993, President Bill Clinton and
Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa decided to establish them at the
summit. These talks have three major pillars: sectoral negotiations,
macro economy issues, and global issues. During the negotiations,
the United States consistently argued that Japan imported less American
manufacturing goods because Japan was different and its market
was very closed. Consequently, it demanded Japan’s expansion of
imports by setting numerical targets. Japan opposed this idea because
it might lead to controlled trade and would destroy the liberal trade
system. After heated negotiations, by June 1995, Washington and
Tokyo made agreements on three priority sectors: insurance, government
procurement, and automobile/automobile parts.
U.S.–JAPAN TRADE CONFLICTS. The United States and Japan experienced
trade friction primary because of increased exports from
Japan to the United States. After World War II, under tutelage of the
United States, Japan made great efforts toward economic recovery.
The U.S. market was the lifeblood for Japan’s postwar recovery.
Japan’s exports of textiles, silverware, and other miscellaneous good
rapidly increased. In this period, textiles were Japan’s largest-volume
export item, and a flood of cheap Japanese cotton goods did great
damage to the American textile industry, precipitating a Japanese voluntary
export restraint in January 1956. The United States had a favorable
trade balance with Japan until 1964, but since then, it has
generally run a trade deficit. In the late 1960s, Japan’s exports of cotton,
wool, and synthetic fiber products to the United States rose to the
surface as the first instance of trade friction. In January 1972, the
Japan–U.S. Textile Agreement was concluded based on the Multi
Fiber Agreement (textile trade).
Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, Japan’s exports of steel,
color TVs, machine tools, and automobiles became major targets for
trade friction with the United States. In 1969, a three-year agreement
was signed to set up a voluntary export restraint on Japan, and this