Exercises in Futility: Post-War Automobile-Trade Negotiations between Japan and the United States

Abstract

This paper traces the history of the failed automobile-trade negotiations between Japan and the United States from the 1970’s to the mid 1990’s. It attributes the failure of those negotiations to a lack of understanding on both sides of not only what was motivating the other side, but also the unalterable cultural, social, and economic constraints under which the other side operated. JEL Categories: F13automobile industry, US-Japanese trade negotiations