U.S. OFFICIALS SAY NO PROGRESS ON JAPAN DISPUTE
White House officials
said no progress had been made in talks with Japan on a dispute
on Japanese microchip sales.
    President Reagan's National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci
told reporters "it looks like a very difficult situation at this
point."
    The Reagan administration is due to slap 100 pct tariffs on
a range of Japanese products on Friday in retaliation for
Japan's alleged failure to honor an agreement to stop dumping
semiconductors in world markets outside the U.S. and failure to
open its own market to U.S. goods.
    White House chief of staff Howard Baker said that talks
with the Japanese had failed to provide any reason to prevent
the publication of a proclamation on Friday putting the new
duties in effect.
    "I assume that there will be a proclamation on Friday," Baker
said. Carlucci said that the evidence of Japanese microchip
dumping at below production costs in third countries had been
fairly conclusive. He said that in U.S.-Japanese talks that
concluded last Friday, Japanese officials presented statistics
to show that Japan had made its market more open to American
products.
    "Our statistics do not confirm this, indeed they tend to go
in the other direction," Carlucci said.
    Baker and Carlucci appeared before White House reporters as
Reagan enjoyed a vacation at his mountaintop ranch near Santa
Barbara.
 Reuter
