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PASTOR GENER AL'S REPORT, APRIL 11, 1985
PAGE 11
In fact, U.S. makers of parts and peripherals were utterly incap
able of fulfilling the needs of the computer revolution that
erupted with unexpected fury over the past few years. Without
hardware imports from Japan, the software would not have been
sold, the memory sockets could not have been filled in time, disk
drives and cathode ray tubes would not have been available••••
Even the U.S. semiconductor industry, often cited as a victim of
Japanese imports, benefited greatly from such imports••.• Japan's
efficient output of huge volumes of commodity chips at ever lower
costs lowered the prices of all electronic gear and thus enlarged
the market for more specialized and higher-margin devices from
U.S. companies•••• Nothing could so rapidly cripple U.S. techni
cal progress as to exclude trade with Japan.
These imports are in general a positive reflection of the good
health of the U.S. economy and its superiority to Japan in .£!J!=
cial technologies.
The $30 billion deficit in our balance of
tr'a'de with Japan in high-technology products mostly reflects our
faster and more resourceful application of computers and related
equipment••••
The U.S. lead is not limited to applications, however. In a re
cent poll by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Deve
lopment, 200 leading European chief executive officers found the
U.S. to be the world leader in five major fields of technology,
even with Japan in two others (electronics and manufacturing) and
number two only in robotics and metal alloys•••• Europeans, be
hind in every area by their own appraisal, have not benefited in
any discernible way from their aggressive industrial policies and
exclusion of much Japanese technology.
Failing to comprehend the multifarious and delicate pattern of
u.s.-Japanese interdependency, economists and politicians fixate
on the two deficits [budget and foreign trade] and threaten to
inflict real damage on an essentially healthy system•••• When the
U.S. and Japanese economies are intimately symbiotic, they urge
disruptive protection that will hurt both••••
Although the U.S. must continue to negotiate for easier access to
Japanese markets, particularly in semiconductors and telecommu
nications, it must always recognize that America benefits from
Japanese capitalism, even when--and perhaps particularly when-
Japan floods U.S. markets with its goods.
In particular, �
.!!!2,il recent u.s. recovery � in considerably degree made _!E
Japan.
Another leading American economist, Robert J. Samuelson, writing in the
April 8, 1985 LOS ANGELES TIMES, worried that U.S.-Japan trade frictions
could explode in the future. A major reason, he explained, is the cultural
gap between the two powers.
Although today's dispute may subside, the United States and Japan
have fundamentally different trading aims and political styles.
It's � to be optimistic that the differences won't � day
"exi)Iode into� protectionist spasm that harms everyone.