Senators called for retaliation against Japan.

Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee urged Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige to stop relying on the free market to restore American trade balance and instead take retaliatory action against Japanese imports. “Despite the niceties of the Japanese prime minister and his assurances that something will be done, we’ve got to make a shot across their bow to get their attention,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, (D-N.J.). But Baldrige, who testified before the panel’s subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and Judiciary, defended the Reagan Administration’s approach of trying to negotiate an end to Japanese trade laws that block many U.S. exports.