Japanese Executive Decries Iacocca Remarks : * Trade: Nissan president calls the Chrysler chief’s recent accusations of lying ‘outrageous and insulting.’

TOKYO — In the latest of a series of trans-Pacific volleys, a leading Japanese industrialist on Monday characterized recent actions by Chrysler Chief Executive Lee A. Iacocca as “outrageous and insulting” and suggested that U.S. Secretary of Commerce Robert A. Mosbacher didn’t know what he was talking about when he said American auto parts were as good as Japanese parts.

Yutaka Kume, president of Nissan Motor Co. and head of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Assn., also wrote off the chances of continuing trade talks between the heads of Japanese and American auto makers, saying he had “no intention of coming to another summit meeting like this.”

Kume, in lashing out at Iacocca, told a group of foreign reporters that he wanted to depart from Japan’s past policy of “maintaining a passive posture in the face of unreasonable criticism.” Instead, he said, he wanted to “say what needs to be said to other countries in order to dispel misconceptions.”

“I just can’t tolerate remarks (in America) that the Japanese government and business leaders are liars,” Kume said. “It is more than impolite, it is rude.”

Since President Bush and his entourage of auto executives returned from Japan earlier this month with an apparent Japanese promise to buy an estimated $10 billion in additional U.S.-made auto parts by 1994 and about 20,000 American cars annually, there has been a storm of controversy over the deal.

Japanese politicians and executives complained that America was trying to push poor-quality products on their country. In the United States, critics said the concessions would do little to shrink the $42-billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan. Japanese auto and auto parts exports to the United States account for 75% of the imbalance.

Kume characterized the auto and auto parts deals as voluntary targets rather than promises. He said that while the Japanese auto industry would make its best effort to boost purchases of U.S. auto parts, it’s up to U.S. auto makers to sell cars to Japanese consumers. “We can’t sell cars for them,” he said.

Iacocca raised hackles when, toward the end of his Tokyo trip with Bush, he abruptly left a meeting between American and Japanese auto executives, took off on his private jet and returned to Detroit just in time to deliver a rousing speech calling Japan’s concessions meaningless and its market closed. When differences arose later over whether Japan’s agreement to purchase represented “targets” or “promises,” Iacocca accused Japanese leaders of lying, while U.S. officials suggested that Japan was backpedaling on its promises.

Meanwhile, Chrysler on Monday confirmed plans to cut its purchases of Japanese-made steel by 25% this year--and to stop buying imported steel altogether by 1994.

“Mr. Iacocca’s remarks and behavior are outrageous and insulting to us,” Kume said in rejecting the Chrysler chief’s accusations. Kume suggested that heavy losses and layoffs by American auto companies had “politicized” the trade issue and led to charges by officials who were not necessarily in a position to know.

“Secretary Mosbacher contends that American parts and components are as good as Japan’s, but that is not something politicians decide,” Kume said. “It is something engineers decide.”

Kume berated American auto makers for failing to make the efforts Europeans have made to sell in Japan, and he suggested that American auto makers do more marketing. “They have got to set up their own distribution network,” he said.

In Detroit, a Chrysler spokesman said the firm is “extremely disappointed by the attitude (Kume) has taken.”

Although American auto executives expressed a willingness to meet again with top Japanese executives soon to follow up on their Tokyo visit, Japanese executives have showed little enthusiasm for another meeting. Honda Motor President Nobuhiko Kawamoto said earlier that the meetings were not productive discussions, but an exchange of recriminations.

Kume added that such meetings were “legally risky” for antitrust reasons. “I have no intention of coming to another summit meeting like this,” he said.

Kume’s remarks come on the heels of other remarks critical of the United States by Japanese leaders. Yoshio Sakurauchi, speaker of the Lower House of Parliament, recently told his constituents that American workers are lazy and illiterate.

Kume said he disagrees with that assessment. “I feel our Tennessee plant employees are well motivated and the vehicles they turn out are as good as any in Japan.”

The Nissan executive expressed concern over the possibility of rising anti-Japanese sentiment and said Japanese auto companies would restrain their sales efforts in America to try to avoid a backlash.

Times staff writer Donald Woutat in Detroit contributed to this story.