Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I'd like to thank you, Mr. Campbell, for taking time. I know you're an extremely busy person and a person of your expertise can be really helpful to this committee. I also want to thank the chairman for arranging for you to be here today. It took some special arrangements and I'm really glad to get the benefit of your wisdom and experience.
We just got back from Japan. As I was saying to you, you don't really know a place, I don't think, until you go there. The visit was enormously illuminating.
I'll start with one thing that I found out when I was there, which is that trade deals are about, first and foremost, reducing tariffs, and then addressing identifiable non-tariff barriers, but beneath that, there seems to be cultural attitudes which, as one person described, are difficult to write into a trade deal. I noticed there was some of that in Japan.
An example was the use of Sugi cedar. I was told that over 100 institutions will give a mortgage rate reduction of .3% to .5% if a new home is built with a minimum amount of local wood. There were other even less tangible preferences.
I'm wondering what you can tell us about the strength and depth of the Japanese preference for local Japanese goods and services, and how that might be addressed in a trade negotiation.