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For a governmental backwater so obscure it’s a frequent target for extinction, the Federal Maritime Commission sure knows how to get the most out of its 15 minutes of fame.
In just a day and a half last week, the four-member commission accomplished what legions of trade negotiators and State Department types could not do in 14 years — it convinced Japan that cargo ports should be run more like a business and less like an underworld racket.
And for that, the little panel with the big stick is being criticized. Red-faced diplomats, unaccustomed as they are to decisive action, are flummoxed. Hasty, they sputter. Reckless. Precipituous. Out of step with the glacial tempo of the ritualized international trade mating dance. The closest thing the commission got to kudos was an observation by Under Secretary of State Stuart Eizenstat that the threat to ban Japanese ships from American ports “concentrated the minds.”
Concentrated minds are a terrible thing to waste. Now that the commission has everyone’s attention, perhaps those paid the big bucks to represent this country at the table of commerce will remember this lesson: access to the world’s biggest, most free-spending market is subject to fair trade practices and an earnest desire for a level playing field.
By all accounts, Japan was neither fair in its port practices nor was it truly interested in being so. All of Japan’s ports are gripped in the stanglehold of a monopoly — the Japan Harbor Transportation Association — which, while notoriously inefficient at handling cargo, was expert at driving up the cost of incoming goods with exhorbitant fees, mountainous paperwork and banker’s hours for longshoremen. Even Japan’s large shipping companies were unable to overcome the powerful combination of the association’s political clout and its strong ties to organized crime. It took the dinky Federal Maritime Commission, a mere 140 employees strong, to slap some sense, and a sense of fair play, into all concerned.
After years of what diplomats coyly call candid discussions, one can hardly blame U.S. negotiators for being satisfied with all talk and no action. The media missed the point as well, running stories about how the embargo would mean a bleak Christmas for Americans shut off from the latest electronic gadgetry. Not a peep about how Japan might feel about its gizmos spending the holidays bobbing around at sea.
Certainly, threatening to spark a trade war is not something done lightly. But 14 years of fruitless talks and 14 years of unreasonable barriers to U.S. exports to Japan should have been enough for those charged with representing this country’s interests in global trade. We don’t expect those who failed to give the Federal Maritime Commission to get a medal, but they at least could lay off.
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