The United States said Wednesday it was reluctant to negotiate a free-trade deal with Japan unless the Asian nation opened up its tightly shut agriculture sector. Although Washington agreed to exclude rice from the recently concluded free-trade agreement with South Korea, it would not offer a similar concession to Japan, Assistant US Trade Representative Wendy Cutler told reporters.

Cutler was the chief US negotiator of the pact with South Korea, the biggest free-trade deal since the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement.