Toyota Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada on Monday challenged Detroit-based automakers to spell out exactly what barriers they face selling in Japan’s market as negotiations between the United States and Japan on a regional free-trade pact intensify.
“We would like to hear specifically what kind of problems they are seeing. And listening, we’d like to work together in a forward-looking way, including confirming what they’re saying is a fact,” Uchiyamada told reporters after a speech to the Economic Club of Washington.
Japan’s entry into negotiations on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership has rattled Detroit-based auto manufacturers Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, which have already lost substantial market share to Japanese auto companies over the last 50 years. They accuse Tokyo of depressing the value of the yen to help Japanese automakers export cars at a lower price and of maintaining a web of regulatory and other barriers to keep foreign automakers out of the Japanese market.