Free Trade Urged As Cold War Move

Press, Volume C, Issue 29690, 7 December 1961, Page 17

Free Trade Urged As Cold War Move

(N -Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, December 6. Two former United States State Department leaders have urged the United States to move toward freer trade, par- * ticularly with the European Common Market, or run the danger of enhancing Soviet power by dividing the Western world. This was the message laid before a Congressional economic sub-committee yesterday by Mr Dean Acheson and Mr William Clayton, Secretary and Under-Secretary’ of State respectively during the Truman Administration, the Associated Press said.

Both solidly supported President Kennedy's drive for freer trade. Mr Kennedy is expected to ask Congress next month for broad authority to cut tariffs “across the board” on entire groups of products, instead of the limited item-by-item reductions now permitted under the Reciprocal Trade Act. Mr Acheson said the highly successful European Common Market had reached a crucial stage. “It is going to move toward an exclusive European market, with a high tariff wall against outsiders or associate itself with the other great market, North America, and with the remainder of the free world,” he said. The influence of the United States, exerted now, could

be decisive, he said, in determining which alternative Europe chose. If Western Europe turned to high tariffs and exclusiveness "then the free world will be split and the power of Soviet Russia and the Communist Bloc will be vastly increased,” Mr Acheson said. Mr Clayton said nearly all Western European countries would probably affiliate with the Common Market and its plan of steady elimination of tariffs among members. “If then the United States and Canada should associate themselves with the trade aspects of the Common Market movement,” he said, "the Soviets would face a united West with a political and economic aggregation so powerful that their cold war objectives could not be realised. “On the other hand, if the United States stands aside, the West would be divided, the United States would be isolated and the Soviets would have an open road to the underdeveloped countries,” he said. In New York last night, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Mr William Martin, said the United States faced eventual decay unless it met “an urgent challenge to defend the dollar.” the Associated Press reported. In a prepared speech, Mr Martin said mounting international competition made it imperative to check the wage-price spiral and balance the Federal Budget so the Government was not “perennially passing out iou’s in lieu of paying its bills " He said the United States must convince the world by performance, "that the value of American products and of American dollars will always equal or better that of other countries’ products and currencies. “It seems to me we have no choice but to make the try or else resign ourselves to eventual decay,” he said. The United States Assistant Secretary of Commerce, Mr Jack Behrman, says the growth of the Common Market could weaken American efforts to stem the flow of strategic goods behind the Iron Curtain, according to A.P He told a special House of Representatives committee that expansion and strengthening of the Common Market would make the United States “bargaining position less strong and create more problems in de-

termining what is effective control" of trade with the Soviet Bloc. Mr Behrman said the West, ern Allies “have not completely agreed with us about the nature of the threat nor always agreed with us on the economic and military measures required to meet the threat." He said that many countries in Europe, with a background of continental wars, “have a long history of trading with the enemy even while they were fighting.” The Secretary of Agriculture, Mr Orville Freeman, told a press conference yesterday that the agricultural tariff proposals being considered by the European Common Market countries were “unacceptable to the United States.” The proposals, he said, represented “strict protectionism for agriculture.” The United States State and Agriculture Departments were completely in accord on the matter. In unusually strong language. Mr Freeman said the United States had received "a run around the roses.” First there was an election :n France that had halted consideration of the United States plea for entry of American agricultural products into the market, he said, and then the West German election brought further delay. “Now is the time to fish or cut bait on this,” the Agriculture Secretary said.

Marriage Plans (N.Z. Press Assn.—Copi/ripnt) CAPE CANAVERAL. Dec B. Scientists plan to “marry" a space capsule and a converted war rocket within a few days in the next step toward putting an American astronaut into orbit. The bellshaped Mercury capsule, free of troubles that cropped up earlier this week, today remained inside a hangar on the Cape, waiting for the truck ride ‘hat would take it to the launching pad. The Atlas rocket is already on the pad. • Shirt On Loan.—The Queen is to lend the shirt worn by Charles I at his execution and six other historic items from Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle to the Royal Gifts Exhibition opening on December 29.—London. Dec. 6.