The US administration is ready to impose punitive tariffs of up to 100% on a range of goods including laser printers, disk drives, personal computers and television sets imported by NEC Corp, Hitachi Ltd, Fujitsu Ltd, Oki Electric Corp and Toshiba Corp and other chipmakers, in retaliation against what is seen as continued violation of the US-Japan accord on dumping of memory chips. The recommendations were drawn up by the Economic Policy Council of the US cabinet, and President Reagan was expected to approve the measures shortly after we went to press on Friday. A final list of potential targets would then be published and affected US parties would be invited to comment before the final list – likely only 25% as long as the initial one – is drawn up and approved. The duties would then be imposed in two weeks.
