U.S. lawmakers concerned over Japan's 'unfair' insurance market

+

WASHINGTON, March 27 Kyodo -
A group of Democratic lawmakers said Friday they had sent a letter to President
Barack Obama calling on the administration to tear down foreign nations' trade
barriers to U.S. exports, including ''unfair competition'' in Japan's insurance
market.
In the letter dated Thursday, the 26 lawmakers belonging to the House Ways and
Means Committee did not go into detail, but appear to be seeking to ensure
equal competition conditions between Japan Post Insurance Co., a unit of the
government-owned Japan Post Group, and private-sector insurers.
They also spoke of the need to tackle foreign countries' restrictions on beef
imports from the United States, apparently including Tokyo's import ban on U.S.
beef from cattle aged over 20 months.
The lawmakers led by Sander Levin, chairman of the House committee, asked the
administration to handle these and other trade barriers in its 2010 National
Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, due out next week, with
countermeasures such as filing complaints with the World Trade Organization.
''We urge you to use the NTE as an opportunity to address these barriers by
instructing (the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative) to request immediate
negotiations with our respective key trading partners,'' they said.
''If these significant trade issues cannot be resolved on an expedited basis,
we urge USTR to take appropriate action, whether under WTO rules, U.S. law, in
bilateral negotiations, or a combination of these approaches,'' they added.
==Kyodo