BOYCOTT OF U.K. GOODS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30368, 18 February 1964, Page 13

BOYCOTT OF U.K. GOODS

U.S. Denial Of Incitement

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, February 17. An official spokesman yesterday denied suggestions that the United States Government was inciting or encouraging a boycott of British goods because of Britain’s trade with Cuba. A statement by Mr Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State, that foreign firms trading with Cuba might face consumer reaction in the United States has been interpreted in some American press and radio reports as encouragement for a boycott.”

This was denied by a State Department spokesman today. “We are not inciting it and we are not trying to encourage it.” he said. The “New York Times” said Mr Rusk had placed on the record earlier indications by the Administration that, the American public might help enforce the Americansponsored embargo of Cuba. It said “the immediate effect of Mr Rusk’s remarks, in the opinion of diplomatic observers, was to give official sanction to such a boycott.

Some other observers, on the other hand, tended to feel that Mr Rusk had played down the importance of. the issue by emphasising that British trade with Cuba was “more a matter of a difference of policy than a matter of large and consequential practical effect, because British trade with Cuba is very small.” The United States Government is expected to announce this week how far it proposes to go in cutting off economic and military aid to countries whose ships or planes carry cargoes to Cuba.