Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone resisted pressure from the United States in the 1980s to open up the Japanese market to imports, according to diplomatic records declassified Thursday.
The push by the administration of former President Ronald Reagan on imports of U.S. beef and oranges was resisted by Nakasone, who proposed a "cooling-off period" in trade talks during a January 1983 summit, the records show.
The U.S. fight to access the Japanese market had become a symbol of the economic friction between the countries in the 1980s over their hefty trade imbalance.