Japan wants the US close. Just not too close

THE US president wasn’t mincing words when it came to ructions in trade policy with Japan.

“From the beginning of our administration we’ve had a key trade policy objective, and that was to break down the barriers to the sales of US goods and services,” he said. “We want agreements that produce permanent improvement in access and in US sales.”

Except that was not Donald Trump speaking, but then president George Bush in 1992, at a rather unlikely venue: The opening of a Toys “R” Us store in Nara prefecture, during Bush’s last official visit to Japan as leader.