Japan Says Clinton Wants Trade Results At Any Cost

THE Clinton administration demands results in reducing Japan's trade surplus with the United States even if it means undermining Tokyo's new policy of deregulation and less government intervention in business, says the Japanese ambassador.

``There is probably much more emphasis by this present administration on results rather than their costs,'' Ambassador Takakazu Kuriyama said April 4 in comparing approaches of the Clinton and Bush administrations.

The Clinton administration sometimes appears to ask ``for more Japanese government intervention,'' he added. This runs counter to Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa's economic policy, which is ``strongly committed to deregulation and less government intervention'' in business.

Formal talks aimed at cutting the $60 billion Japanese trade surplus with the US were suspended after President Clinton and Mr. Hosokawa announced failure to agree on the use of numerical Japanese import targets demanded by the US at their February White House summit .

The two governments, however, are exploring ways to revive negotiations before Mr. Clinton and Hosokawa meet at the annual midsummer economic summit of the world's seven wealthiest countries at Naples, Italy.

Texas senator denies ethics charges

SEN. Phil Gramm says allegations by consumer activist Ralph Nader that he may have violated Senate ethics rules are a ploy to deflect criticism of the president in Whitewater.

Mr. Nader said Senator Gramm (R) of Texas has ``made a career of vituperative attacks on government spending'' while misusing federal money for campaign and personal purposes.

Nader's complaint, based on a July 1993 article on Gramm in the Dallas Morning News, contended that the senator used taxpayer money for campaign purposes, abused congressional free-mail privileges, and took a private vacation at federal expense.

But Gramm released a letter from the Ethics Committee saying it was taking no action on the questions raised by the newspaper. ``This is the recycling of an old complaint which, as Ralph Nader is painfully aware, already has been dismissed,'' he said.