WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR U.S. TRADE DEFICIT?

Two Missouri legislators, one a Republican state senator from Creve Coeur and the other a Democratic state representative from Mexico, Mo., recently provided considerable insight into the American-Japanese trade problem that seems to have been around for at least a decade. Both have some qualifying credentials as a result of legislative assignments and personal and business backgrounds. Here's what state Sen. Francis Flotron recently told members of the Japan America Society when they met in St. Louis: "We have to understand that we are part of a community of nations and we simply cannot pull backward." Rep. Joe Maxwell told society members about his community's positive gains from the location of a Japanese magnetic-wire factory and citizen eagerness to encourage greater foreign investments and trade.

These views are in rather sharp contrast to those expressed by some of President Bush's fellow travelers to Japan the other day. Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca told cheering members of the Detroit Economic Club, following his departure in a huff from Tokyo: "We rattled their cage." In light of huge losses in 1991 by General ~Motors Ford and Chrysler and the continuing growth of market share by Japanese car manufacturers, there may be some argument over whose cages were rattled.

In fact, we're not certain the Bush "jobs, jobs, jobs" delegation to Japan did anything more than heighten that country's resolve to compete even more intensely with U.S. industry, not only in this country but worldwide.

Missouri, with its Big 3 auto plants and its natural tendency toward isolation, may be something of a microcosm of the United States. It hasn't been too many years ago that efforts were made to thwart foreign (make that Japanese) investment in good old Missouri farmland. Interestingly, this barrier wasn't removed until the mid-1980s when an agricultural recession left landowners looking for any kind of purchaser, even those who wanted to convert their yen to dollars.

The General Assembly has sought at various times to deal with the Japanese threat with buy-American and official language statutes, mirroring to a large extent the equally ineffective barriers sought in the federal Congress.

It is worth noting here that, despite the plant at Mexico and a handful of other locations, the Japanese have not been overly enthusiastic about making large investments in our state. We have a hunch, and it is only that, this reluctance can be traced to the political rhetoric of several congressional Missourians, including House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, who spent much of his 1988 campaign for the presidency calling for sanctions against Japanese and Korean imports.

No reasonable American is unsympathetic to the plight of U.S. companies, particularly those that manufacture one of our favorite products, the automobile. But the plain fact is that one-third of all these Americans prefer and purchase cars that were designed and often built in Japan. They buy them because they believe, rightly or wrongly, these cars offer better value, economy of operation, superior workmanship and higher resale worth. These purchases make up nearly three-fourths of our trade deficit with Japan, so it is obvious the problem will be greatly diminished when Detroit can convince the American consumer that its products are better buys than the foreign variety.

There are various ways of doing this, but the incentive has to be greater than John Q. Public's concern over financial slippage of the Big 3 at a time these companies are paying their chief executives millions of dollars in salaries for producing balance sheets that show billion-dollar losses.

Lee Iacocca can be glad he isn't heading a Japanese car firm; he would have been forced to resign in disgrace years ago.

The average American consumer spends about $100 more each year on imports from Japan than his Japanese counterpart spends on U.S.-made products. Our foreign competitors buy many American exports, despite the illusion painted by some that our goods are unknown in Japan. We need to remember that fact as the nation debates import restrictions and barriers in the weeks ahead.

We also need to recall that U.S. agricultural exports, if faced with the same kind of trade barriers advocated by some in this country, would literally dry up, triggering a farm recession that would make 1982-86 look like good times. If the U.S. moves to thwart imports, it runs the very real danger of finding our exports facing the same barriers in Europe, Canada, South America and the Pacific Rim.

Living in a world that has shut down free trade will be calamitous for all of America, not just the segment that now finds it tough to compete with foreign-made products that many U.S. consumers believe are superior. We must learn something from history in this critical moment, and that lesson involves trade wars and the recessions they unfailingly produce.

Americans buy Japanese cars because they prefer them, while Detroit still does not manufacture cars for Japan that have a right-side steering wheel for that country's left-side traffic lanes. That prompts an even more important question: Who is really responsible for Am~erica's trade deficit?