A Lack of U.S. Salesmanship?

Japanese buying mission seeks U.S. imports

American businessmen have long been enraged and frustrated by what they consider a one-sided Japanese attitude on trade. While exporting furiously, the Japanese have put imported products through a thicket of protective tariffs and a maze of nontariff barriers ranging from quotas to stringent labeling requirements. One result: a GE refrigerator sells for $2,075 in Tokyo, compared with $1,289 in New York City. Little wonder, then, that many U.S. companies saw no point in even trying to crack the Japanese market.

There are some signs, though, that tough behind-the-scenes talk by officials of the Carter Administration is starting to bring change. At American urging, Tokyo this month dispatched a 91-man delegation of corporate and government officials to tour the U.S., actively seeking, and signing orders for, more imports. Last week the mission fanned out from San Francisco to a score of cities to talk up a new liberalism in trade. In a flight of wish-it-were-true hyperbole, Delegation Chief Yoshizo Ikeda, president of Mitsui, the giant trading company, told a gathering in Atlanta that his country is "removing import quotas, slashing tariffs and streamlining import procedures in order to make Japan, this year, the least protected market of all the great trading powers, including the U.S." ,

The barnstorming buyers ran into two trade barriers of another sort: culture shokku and a lack of aggressive salesmanship by some of the Americans they met. In Atlanta, Keigo Yamada, executive managing director of Ito-Yokado, a chain of discount department stores with an annual sales volume of $1.3 billion, shied away from a meal of grits and complained that he was meeting the wrong people. Yamada wanted American sportswear modified to suit Japanese tastes and sizes but, he says, was told "that they would have to ask their supervisors in New York." A Mitsubishi buyer offered Jose Lopez of the Atlanta-based Salvatori Corp. $3 apiece for men's ties that normally sell for $4.25. The hagglers finally struck a deal at $3.65.

American salesmen might be pardoned for awaiting proof that the Japanese are really interested in importing. Japan has slashed tariffs this year on 318 items, but the U.S. regards the nontariff barriers as more important. On them, there have been only two small signs of give. Tokyo has liberalized financing terms for imports, and the Ministry of Trade and Industry has ordered a study on how to simplify import documentation and inspection procedures.

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