Detroit: Never Mind, Let The Japanese Have Their Kei Cars. We Want Vietnam And Malaysia In The TPP

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

This just in: “The U.S. auto industry has dropped a demand for Japan to abolish rules related to minivehicles ahead of upcoming talks between the two sides over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade zone,” The Nikkei [sub] writes after reading this story.

Detroit made the generous concession to let Japan have its kei cars ahead of talks between Japan and the U.S., to be held in Washington on Tuesday. 1.52 million kei cars changed hands in Japan in 2011.

The small cars enjoy lower taxes and lower insurance rates in Japan. Previously, the Big Three U.S. automakers found that highly unfair. Rumor has it that after one of the three asked to have the demand dropped, the matter is fair again.

The Nikkei heard that U.S. automakers are worried that opposition against Japan could delay negotiations with other presumptive TPP members. GM wants to expand into fast-growing countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia. These countries are taking part in the TPP talks. A successful deal would make U.S. cars more competitive in these countries.

In the meantime, Japanese are worried about “GM crops.” No relation to the General – the “GM” stands for Genetically Modified. Allegedly, two thirds of U.S. food already is “Frankenstein food,” Japan’s Majiroxnews says. Fanning these flames would have much better chances for success than denying the Japanese their lower taxed kei cars.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • TonyJZX TonyJZX on Feb 04, 2012

    hilariously colonial! where i am, the states are free to ignore federal 'recommendations' each state is its own little fiefdom with it's own rules and taxes if they happily ignore the feds what chance would a foreign nation have?

  • Carbiz Carbiz on Feb 04, 2012

    Frankenstein food? Do I smell red herring? Japan should be more concerned about radioactive clouds in the north and the toxic products being shipped out from their western neighbor. It is common knowledge at least that Japan has always protected its agribusiness. Why not? Without food, everything else is worthless. With the world's population now heading to 8 billion, just which countries will be able to export food items in, say, 30 or 40 years? It looks like environmental change is affecting large swaths of the west central states of the U.S., Australia is being overwhelmed by desert, as is northern Africa (which used to be the bread basket of the world!) That would leave Canada, Brazil and Argentina as being the only 3 countries capable of exporting large quantities of food products in the coming decades. (BTW, Brazil's population has probably hit 200 million by now, or will quite soon.) Not sure what Japan's ulterior motive is (they always have one!), but engineered food products may be the ONLY salvation for humanity in the coming decades until more than a few countries learn to 'keep it in their pants.' Well, at least until the food replicators in the Federation are brought back from the future....

  • Stuki Stuki on Feb 05, 2012

    Welcome to so called "free market capitalism", post civilization style. Instead of building cars people want for prices people want to pay, try bribing some scumbucket politicians into banning the cars people want, so they are force to buy whatever junk you are able to slap together for too much money. That whole notion that "The Rule of Law" is something worthy of celebration, is yet another piece of pagan religion that is highly overrated.

    • See 3 previous
    • Stuki Stuki on Feb 07, 2012

      @carbiz "The rule of law" in the abstract did not bring middle ager's out of anything. A specific class of "rule of law" did. This is a very important distinction. The rules of law that had positive effect, were the ones which were few and simple enough so that pretty much everyone agreed with them, and this allowed most people to agree with most decisions. A huge improvement over the arbitrariness of rule by King, or rule by Clergy, or rule by some slick talker who managed to drum up a bunch of votes. We no longer have that. Now, rule of law means rule of so many laws that noone can differentiate it from arbitrariness anymore. And we have no American frontier to bail for, when the riffraff and scumbags decide to rule arbitrary against us. And that's the crux of the problem; no ability to exit for better rules of law, or, if the current one is decrepit enough, for no rule of law at all.

  • Icemilkcoffee Icemilkcoffee on Feb 06, 2012

    So how come the Big 3 don't produce Kei cars for this market? Nissan and Toyota both produce large pickup trucks specificallly for the american market. Why can't american car makers do the same in Japan?

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