Ronald Reagan had been in office less than two months when he made this entry in his diary.  Yes, today's quote is from The Reagan Diaries.  Here is the full entry for that Thursday 33 years ago, at least at it relates to trade:

But wait; there is more.   A system of "voluntary export restraints," limiting the volume of Japanese car exports to the United States, went into effect on May 1981 and lasted until 1994.  We will leave to another time any assessment of that policy.  It is appropriate, however, to share here President Reagan's reminiscence about the program's origins.  This comes in his diary entry for January 10, 1986, when he reports on a meeting with the then Foreign Minister of Japan, Shintaro Abe.   On that occasion, President Reagan wrote:

It is an old quote, but in spirit, if not in fact, it hardly seems out of date, not with President Obama set to head off for Japan tomorrow and autos one of the key obstacles to a breakthrough in the U.S.-Japan TPP negotiations.  Indeed, it would not surprise us to learn that trade in autos is the stumbling block to a TPP breakthrough this week.  We say that because, for the United States, the other issues are so-called "offensive" issues. They are in areas like dairy, beef, rice and pork where U.S. producers want increased access to the Japanese market. Anything more that they get will be more than they now have.
 
The auto sector is different.  That is a "defensive" interest for America.  In the U.S. market - and in markets around the world - America's traditional big three, Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors, face tough competition from Toyota and other Japanese rivals, and any erosion in the trade policy advantages they currently hold would be a setback, whether it is the loss of the current 2.5 percent tariff on car imports from Japan or  the 25 percent tariff on trucks. 

How will all of this play out?  We have no idea.  We'd like to think that any fix or fixes won't make the problem worse.  In that regard we can but respond to press reports.  Certainly maintaining a 778 tariff on anything, even a "sacred" product like rice, seems out of place in a free-trade agreement.  That's a current bad idea from Japan.  A bad idea reportedly coming from the U.S. would be establishing a system for managing trade with import minimums - that is, a minimum number of U.S. cars to be sold in Japan.  That strikes us as a truly terrible precedent for TPP.  (And how would it work?  Would the government of Japan or its agents be the buyers of last resort?  Would the benefit be limited to the Big Three or would Hondas from America count?)

If there is a deal on autos, it will of course be worked out by very able negotiators on both sides. But President Obama and Prime Minister Abe will have to sign off, and to coin a phrase, they both have skin in the game.  The rescue of the Detroit car makers is one of the signature achievements of the Obama administration.  As for Prime Minister Abe, well, Foreign Minister Abe mentioned above was his father.  This issue is in his bones.