Auto Trade Talks Make Little Progress

Tokyo Japanese and U.S. officials concluded two days of working-level talks on automotive trade Thursday after making little progress, and scrapped plans for a third day of negotiations.

But the issue could be discussed at a May 3-5 meeting of trade ministers in Vancouver, Canada, a Japanese official said.

Atsushi Oi, head of the auto section at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, said if the United States dropped demands for more “voluntary” buying of foreign parts by Japanese automakers, “the possibility of reaching some kind of agreement would be higher.”

Washington says the renewal and expansion of such buying is necessary to conclude an agreement in the auto sector, the only part of the two-year old “framework” talks that remains unresolved.