"Our requirements are different," the negotiator insisted.

"How is that?" his counterpart asked patiently

"The steel, the design of the tank, these are unique.  I am not an engineer myself, but the people who do the design work tell me this is so, and that their product will be damaged by the substitution of other parts.  Now," he went on patiently, "there is also the issue of commonality of the parts.  As you know, many of the cars assembled in Kentucky are shipped back to Japan for sale, and in the event of damage or the need for replacement, then the local supply will immediately be available for use.  If we were to substitute the American components which you suggest, this would not be the case."

"Seiji, we are talking about a gasoline tank.  It is made of - what?  Five pieces of galvanized steel, bent and welded together, with a total internal capacity of nineteen gallons.  There are no moving parts," the official of the State Department pointed out, interjecting himself into the process and playing his part as he was paid to do.  He'd even done a good job of feigning exasperation when he'd used his counterpart's given name.

"Ah, but the steel itself, the formula, the proportions of different materials in the finished alloy, these have been optimized to the precise specifications required by the manufacturer -"

"Which are standardized all over the world."

"Sadly, this is not the case.  Our specifications are most exacting, far more so than those of others, and, I regret to say, more exacting than those of the Deerfield Auto Parts Company.  For that reason, we must sadly decline your request."  Which put an end to this phase of the negotiations.  The Japanese negotiator leaned back in his, chair, resplendent in his Brooks Brothers suit and Pierre Cardin tie, trying not to gloat too obviously.  He had a lot of practice in doing so, and was good at it: it was his deck of cards.  Besides, the game was just getting easier, not harder.

"That is most disappointing," the representative of the U.S. Department of Commerce said.  He hadn't expected otherwise, of course, and flipped the page to go on to the next item on the agenda of the Domestic Content Negotiations.  It was like a Greek play, he told himself, some cross between a Sophoclean tragedy and a comedy by Aristophanes.  You knew exactly what was going to happen before you even started.  In this he was right, but in a way he couldn't know.


The meat of the play had been determined months earlier, long before the negotiations had stumbled upon the issue, and in retrospect sober minds would certainly have called it an accident, just one more of the odd coincidences that shape the fate of nations and their leaders.  As with most such events, it had begun with a simple error that had occurred despite the most careful of precautions.  A bad electrical wire, of all things, had reduced the available current into a dip tank, thus reducing the charge in the hot liquid into which the steel sheets were dipped.  That in turn had reduced the galvanizing process, and the steel sheets were in fact given merely a thin patina, while they appeared to be fully coated.  The non-galvanized sheets were piled up on pallets, wrapped with steel bands for stability, and covered with plastic.  The error would be further compounded in the finishing and assembly process.