[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 77 (Wednesday, May 10, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4791-H4792]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   ADDRESSING JAPANESE TRADE DEFICIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I come to the well this evening to discuss a 
very important trade dispute that is going on between the United States 
and Japan, a negotiation that has now dragged on through three 
different Presidents relating to the major portion of the trade deficit 
between the United States and Japan, the automotive industry and the 
automotive parts industry.
  I rise this evening to let the American people know that these 
negotiations have hit an impasse and today we met with the ambassador 
of the United States, our Trade Ambassador, Mr. Kantor, and were 
informed that the administration intends to, for the first time, the 
first administration in over a decade, intends to impose trade 
sanctions on the Nation of Japan in order to help pry open Japan's 
market not just to goods from the United States but hopefully as a 
result of our success there if it can occur to the goods of other 
nations as well.
  I think that the Clinton administration should be commended for 
bringing us to this point. We rise this evening also to say to them, 
hang tough. As they do this and try to pry open that market which if it 
were open and we actually had trade equity with Japan in automotive, we 
literally could construct in this country an additional 100 plants each 
employing over 5,000 people. That is how bad the differential has 
become between our two nations.
  The other point I would like to raise before calling on my very 
capable colleague from the State of Ohio, Mr. Brown, is to say that we 
hope that as these sanctions are imposed that the major auto 
manufacturers of this country and the major automotive parts 
manufacturers of this Nation will not raise prices but will use the 
power that the people of the United States are giving them through 
these negotiations to continue to gain market share in this country and 
to begin to gain additional market share in Japan.
  We wish the Clinton administration well as the President returns from 
Russia. We want him to be successful not just in the sanctions but 
hopefully in the case that will be placed before the World Trade 
Organization in Geneva.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Brown].
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I appreciate the work the gentlewoman from Ohio 
[Ms. Kaptur] has done in fighting for fair trade. All of us appreciate 
the courage and the commitment that President Clinton and Trade 
Representative Kantor have shown in standing tough with Japanese. When 
we have a $25 billion trade deficit with the Japanese on auto-related, 
automobiles and auto parts, $25 billion, that costs us somewhere in the 
vicinity of, it is literally hundreds of thousands of good-paying 
industrial jobs in this country that have gone to Japan because their 
trade doors are closed to American goods. This standing tough that the 
President and Trade Representatives Kantor are doing right now will 
mean as they pry open, as it pries open the Japanese market, it will 
mean more jobs for Ohio, it will mean more jobs all over this country, 
good-paying industrial jobs that create middle-class families, that 
give people the opportunity to send their children to school, to send 
their children to college, to provide for their retirement, to have 
good-paying jobs and nice homes in nice neighborhoods and all that the 
auto industry can
 do if in fact the President and Trade Representative Kantor hang tough 
like you said. I think they will. All of us here in a bipartisan way 
would encourage them to do that.

  I also want to echo what the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] said, 
it is important that as this happens, as we stands up to the Japanese 
this time finally, and a President is actually doing that as President 
Clinton is, that auto companies do not raise prices, that auto 
companies expand their market share. That is what will create jobs in 
Lorain, OH; in Avon Lake, OH; in Twinsburg, OH, and all over the United 
States, good-paying industrial jobs to create a stronger better-paid 
middle class.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his leadership in 
this effort and with the dollar situation around the world, the value 
of the dollar versus the yen, there is certainly no reason for our 
companies to raise prices here or in other places but rather to go 
after market share, especially when the people of the United States are 
standing together through their elected representatives here in 
Washington and fighting for this key lodestar American industry, the 
automotive industry.
  When you think about it, a third of the market in this country, both 
automotive and automotive parts, is comprised of foreign product that 
we import into the United States not just from Japan but from 
everywhere. It is interesting to look at Japan. Only 4 percent of their 
market, the second largest industrial power in the world, comes from 
anyplace else, 4 percent of their market versus one-third of ours.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. If the gentlewoman would yield, one of the things 
that Ambassador Kantor told us today at a meeting with a group of about 
a dozen Members is that the Japanese have found a way with fixing cars 
with 
[[Page H4792]]  auto repairs of shutting out American auto parts so 
that if you are an auto consumer in Japan, you go to get your car fixed 
and you have got to use Japanese auto parts.
  Ms. KAPTUR. We ask the President, hang tough with Japan.

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