Japanese and U.S. negotiators explored various factors that control market openings for farm imports during President Obama’s visit, a senior administration official told reporters. The unnamed official said “there are still negotiations to be had” when asked about Japan’s view that there are gaps between the two nations. A joint statement said the nations had found a path forward for talks.
The United States wants more access to Japan’s market; Japan wants to exclude five “sacred” products – rice, wheat, dairy products, sugar, and beef and pork.
Said the senior official: “And in each of these areas, we took the talks to different levels, but the overall outcome was in a number of the products we were able to identify what the path is going to be towards the ultimate resolution. When I say that it means there are various factors that go into market access agreement — the length of time over which a market access barrier might be reduced, which barriers are eliminated and which barriers are reduced and what the relationship is between them, how the market access is structured. And we went through each one of these products and oftentimes line by line of the tariffs to determine what was the most robust outcome in terms of opening markets for U.S. exports, and to do so in a way where we could secure Japan’s agreement.”
In response to a question, the official said, “I think parameter is a good way of thinking about it. There are these parameters and there are tradeoffs among parameters. The deeper the cut in the tariff, the longer time it may take to get there. And so we have a sense of what the packages might be and what the pathway forward is to us resolving this.”