Why Japan Won't "Buy American"
MICHAELBERGER
MISSED OPPORTUNITY Why Japan Won't 'Buy American' BY MICHAEL BERGER Tokyo Despite the positive spin that official announcements tried to put on last month's visit here by President George Bush...
...firms, among them Allied-Signal, manufacture in Japan and thus their sales never show up in trade statistics...
...Similarly, American auto parts executives complaining about the low level of exports to Japan neglected to mention that several U.S...
...Many Japanese of my generation still remember and look upon you Americans as our great teachers," he said...
...The student had traded places with the teacher...
...I would go even further...
...sales unit, has his own historical perspective...
...We have many good American suppliers who meet all our specifications for quality, delivery and price...
...The model, named the Probe, is made by Mazda for Ford at Mazda's plant near Detroit...
...Perhaps most important, the Detroit executives seemed ignorant of history...
...Only now are you finally taking notice of us, and what do you see...
...Miyamoto also speaks of the difficult period following the War, when American-initiated social reforms focused Japan's energies on rebuilding and creating an egalitarian society...
...They call this a global partnership," he continued...
...At one spic-and-span dealership, though, there are nothing but Made in USA cars, often selling for $50,000-$100,000...
...Japanese feel more comfortable with George Bush, even when he brings his abrasive friends along, than they would with any likely Democratic President...
...Robert McCurry, a former Detroit executive who now heads Toyota's U.S...
...The story of American auto makers is more complex, and includes several missed opportunities...
...a purchasing manager for a large electronics company snapped at me...
...They often see no reason to trumpet this in the media and give their rivals ideas...
...You helped us rebuild, and then we helped you," he said...
...The anger has been particularly apparent among Japanese industrial leaders, who believe that what they are being forced to do is bad business...
...He went on to argue it is equally true, however, that as the barriers came down, frequently under pressure, the American companies committed to gaining a foothold in Japan and fighting the necessary market-opening battles prevailed...
...What Miyamoto and other Japanese see as an overly simplistic American understanding of the U.S.-Japanese relationship is at the heart of their mixed emotions...
...Yes, we had formal trade barriers," he said...
...But you'll never do it if you think Japan is the cause of all your troubles...
...Even as Japanese automakers were taking the advice of American quality experts, Detroit was still churning out Pintos, Vegas and Omnis...
...The day of reckoning had to come...
...But beyond the anger one encounters a much deeper and more significant emotion that is a bittersweet mixture of nostalgia, disappointment and frustration...
...After a long period of negotiations, Ford suddenly broke off the talks without any explanation...
...Miyamoto was a teenager at the time of Pearl Harbor 50 years ago...
...I want America to make a big comeback...
...Toyota wanted to use Ford know-how to improve its ability to compete in Japan, and then export to America...
...And yes, we restricted outside investment...
...Our company is now buying more parts than it needs, thus creating a wasteful inventory...
...The political strategy is equally transparent...
...In 1960," Toyoda said, "we had asked Ford to teach us everything they could about small cars, but in 1980...
...cars suffer from an image problem," declares Russell Jones, an economist at UBS Phillips and Drew International...
...Although none of the current Democratic candidates has much of an image in Japan, all have been identified in media coverage here as inclined toward protectionism and as such are viewed as potentially hostile...
...And others in our industry have told me they are buying parts from America that are simply being dumped in the waste bin...
...Is this the way to reduce America's trade deficit with Japan...
...Nevertheless, many American politicians have accused Japan of taking a 'free ride' on defense...
...Yes, we had a bias against foreign products...
...Duringmy28 years at Chrysler, it wasn't hard to see what was happening,'' he told a Reuters reporter recently...
...That deal never went through either...
...A threat...
...Nonetheless, in 1980 a second approach was made...
...invasion of Japan...
...Industry analysts use more specific language...
...For economic as well as political reasons the Japanese government, in the form of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (miti), is making this manager's company, and scores of others, Buy American...
...Moreover, cars with Ford labels destined for Japanese owners are produced at a plant located, paradoxically, in Hiroshima...
...Miti's economic strategy is obvious...
...When I think back to those days and recall the narrow-minded militaristic regime that dominated Japan, I am convinced that the atom-bombing of Hiroshima, while a great tragedy, was the best thing that could have happened to our country...
...companies doing business in Japan is that they are successful...
...It's all true...
...One reason little is heard about IBM, Xerox, General Electric, Caterpillar, DuPont, Texas Instruments, Digital Equipment, Tandem Computer, Hewlett-Packard, or a host of other U.S...
...When Ford announced recently that it plans to produce a right-hand drive model for export to Japan and Great Britain, the two largest markets for such vehicles, it omitted one embarrassing fact...
...MISSED OPPORTUNITY Why Japan Won't 'Buy American' BY MICHAEL BERGER Tokyo Despite the positive spin that official announcements tried to put on last month's visit here by President George Bush and his mini corporate court, the reactions of most Japanese—as several subsequent inflammatory statements have demonstrated—can be summed up in two words: anger and disappointment...
...cause I still admire many things about America," said 66-year-old Yukio Miyamoto...
...I think it is a stage show...
...It was the only way we could get rid of such incompetent leadership...
...Even if American quality improves, there will be a lag before the image changes...
...By triggering a surge in imports of U.S...
...But that was 1960, the height of American economic power, and Detroit's domestic markets were booming...
...As American auto executives spoke in Tokyo of closed Japanese markets in 1992, for example, they failed to mention that Ford owns 25 per cent of Mazda and has had a share in the Japanese automaker for over a decade...
...he asked...
...U.S...
...The big price is not considered a ripoff by eager Japanese customers, because the American models they covet most are Detroit classics—reconditioned, two-tone beauties from the 1950s and '60s...
...I think that is sad...
...For Ford, this was an opportunity to enter a market with long-term potential as well as secure a share of whatever export business Toyota could build...
...They also overlooked European firms, such as Germany's Bosch and France's Michelin, that have become major Japanese suppliers...
...I think America was our savior...
...Those were the days of 'good old America,'" said businessman Miyamoto...
...The problem—and it is your problem—is that there are not enough American companies with those qualities...
...General Motors chairman Robert Stempel calls the low American auto sales in Japan "a cultural problem...
...The ultimate symbol of this largely misunderstood story can be found on Ring Road 8, a major Tokyo boulevard that has become known as "foreign auto row...
...Why should we purchase products just to please the Americans...
...That abrupt dismissal, Toyota President Eiji Toyoda later wrote, "smacked of blatant disrespect...
...It is lined with dealers for imported cars, most of them bearing European names...
...we were offering to jointly produce our vehicle at Ford...
...Yet for the last 30 years you haven't been paying much attention to Japan...
...At the War's end, he was prepared to die in a last-ditch battle—the expected U.S...
...Miyamoto has spent most of his life working for a trading company, and watching the gradual economic role reversal of this country and the United States...
...products, especially auto parts, it hopes to deflect criticism that the Japanese are responsible for the trouble in Detroit...
...We became your logistical base during the Korean War, and later provided bases for your planes and ships during the Cold War...
...I don't like to sound too critical, beMichael Berger contributes frequently to The New Leader from Japan...
...Thirty years ago, when Toyota was struggling to produce its first passenger car designed for an emerging local market, it came to Ford with a proposal to create a joint venture...
Vol. 75 • January 1992 • No. 1
