Japanese Products Targeted For Tariffs

The Clinton administration, turning up the pressure on Japan, will announce today a list of Japanese products which will be hit with punitive tariffs unless agreement is reached in a bitter trade fight involving autos.

U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor scheduled a morning news conference to unveil the list of proposed trade sanctions.

Congressional and industry sources said they expected the list would cover about $6 billion worth of Japanese products, focusing primarily on Japanese luxury cars.

Cars costing more than $30,000, including Acura, Lexus and Infiniti models, could be hit with punitive tariffs ranging as high as 100 percent, according to these sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Currently, imported passenger cars must pay a 2.5 percent tariff at the border.

Kantor’s announcement would start the clock ticking on a 30-day comment period. The sanctions would not go into effect until after the comment period, giving both countries a chance to resolve the dispute.

The deadline would not expire until after President Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama meet at the annual economic summit of the world’s seven richest industrial countries, to be held June 15-17 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Presidential spokesman Mike McCurry acknowledged Monday that the Halifax summit played a role in the timing of the proposed sanctions. In the past, the United States has successfully used the annual summits to force deals in protracted trade disputes with Japan.

While the United States has sought to isolate its current trade dispute with Japan from broader security issues in the Pacific region, McCurry warned that failure to resolve the dispute could harm overall relations between the world’s two largest economies.

In addition to the sanctions, the administration announced last week that it was prepared to bring a broadbased unfair trade case against Japan before the new World Trade Organization.