US slow to talk free trade if Japan keeps rice off table
Agence France-Presse
US slow to talk free trade if Japan keeps rice off table
4/13/2007
WASHINGTON, Apr 12 (AFP): The United States said yesterday it was reluctant to negotiate a free trade deal with Japan unless the Asian nation opened up its tightly shut agriculture sector.
Although Washington agreed to exclude rice from the recently concluded free trade agreement with South Korea, it would not offer a similar concession to Japan, Assistant US Trade Representative Wendy Cutler told reporters.
Cutler was the chief US negotiator of the pact with South Korea, the biggest free trade deal since the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement.
"Clearly the agriculture sector provides an obstacle to entering into such negotiations with Japan because to date, Japan, unlike Korea, has been-let’s be honest-unwilling to put its agriculture sector on the table and negotiate concrete market-opening provisions," she said.
Rice, of which the United States is a major producer, has long been one of Japan’s most protected products.
Tokyo uses tariffs, farm subsidies and production controls to block nearly all cheap foreign rice.
Seoul’s agreement with the United States will give Korean companies an edge in the US market over Japan and their other Asian competitors.
A day after the deal, Japan said it would study a free trade agreement with the United States and wanted to restart trade talks with South Korea.
But Cutler said excluding rice would not become a pattern as Washington negotiates other free trade pacts in Asia.
"The fact that rice was excluded from this agreement does not set a precedent for other FTA negotiations US may enter into in the future," she said when asked whether rice might be excluded in any pact with Japan.
