Word: summited
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Well, partly because he prepared assiduously, phoning at least three fellow summiteers from Air Force One before landing in Tokyo and sitting in on so many late-night briefings that he pushed himself to the edge of exhaustion. (Or past it; British Prime Minister John Major cut short a one-on-one meeting at 11 p.m. Wednesday because Clinton was too tired to focus.) Partly because Clinton gave both government chiefs and the Japanese public a glimpse of the campaigner the U.S. has not seen since last November. At the opening summit session Wednesday, he worked the room like...
Clinton focused his agenda as he has not often done at home. Agreements to expand trade and to extend more generous aid to Russia, he told his subordinates, took precedence over everything else. He harped on the subject of employment, going so far as to call for a "jobs summit" at the meeting. Expanding trade, he insisted, was one way out of the stagnant employment that bedevils all members of the G-7 (for Group of Seven nations -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan...
...dead body." But if his Liberal Democratic Party is to continue its 38- year rule past next Sunday's parliamentary elections, it must convince voters that it is synonymous with stability, and that involves maintaining good relations with Japan's foreign partners. Miyazawa thus could not allow the summit to fail...
Consequently, it was Miyazawa who made the key concession that led to the summit's greatest achievement. When Miyazawa overruled his Finance Ministry to announce that Japan would eliminate tariffs on "brown" liquors such as whiskey and Cognac, all the pieces fell into place. The seven signed off on the greatest tariff reductions ever achieved through international agreement. In addition to those on some liquors, tariffs will be wiped out on pharmaceuticals, construction equipment, medical equipment, steel and beer. ("Does this mean I get a better price for Molson's back in Washington?" Clinton joked to an aide. Probably...
...important though ambiguous U.S.-Japanese agreement emerged unexpectedly after the formal summit ended and Clinton was about to leave Tokyo. The Americans had sought a "framework" agreement to guide future negotiations aimed at reducing Japan's enormous surpluses in trade with the U.S. (nearly $50 billion a year currently). But negotiators argued through two nights, indulging in such hairsplitting quarrels over wording that at one point Clinton exclaimed, "You mean I flew all the way across the Pacific to negotiate this?" Miyazawa ordered his bargainers not to let Clinton go away empty-handed, and they complied -- though only after arguing...