The recent round of negotiations and conflicts over agricultural trade between the United States and Japan reminds us that the economics and politics of trade are not easily separated. At first glance it seems ludicrous that beef and oranges should become the focus of attention in a trade relationship dominated by automobiles, electronics, steel, and grain. Many Japanese have made precisely that point. They argue that in concentrating on the demand that Japan liberalize imports of oranges and high-quality beef, U.S. negotiators have lost sight of the substantial exports of American agricultural commodities to Japan. Overall agricultural trade between Japan and the United States certainly illustrates a basic interdependence. As Fred Sanderson of the Brookings Institution noted, more farmland in the United States is devoted to growing crops for Japan than there is farmland in Japan itself. Indeed, more American land is devoted to growing feedstuffs for Japanese livestock than Japanese land is devoted to growing rice for the main staple of the Japanese diet. In a real way, the United States depends on Japan as a market nearly as much as Japan depends on the United States as a supplier. Nevertheless, an examination of the conflicts over beef and citrus reveals the stakes for the agricultural economies and the domestic politics of both the United States and Japan. The conflicts over beef and citrus are connected to key issues of structural adjustment for agriculture and industry, especially the long-run role of rice in Japanese agriculture and that of automobiles and other smokestack industries in the American econo-