Approval for U.S. Trade Bill

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 17

Approval for U.S. Trade Bill

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, November 20.

The House of Representatives has approved the controversial Trade Bill, which critics have described as the most protectionist American legislation since the Second World War.

• The bill, which includes provisions for quotas on imports of textiles, shoes and a potentially-wide range of other products, now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to be debated early next month. Although the Senate Finance Committee has attached the bill to a widelysupported measure to increase pensions—a manoeuvre presumably aimed at countering a Presidential veto —its prospects in the Upper Chamber are uncertain. Mr Nixon has declared his support for a mandatory limit on textile imports, but sharply opposes the bill’s other quota provisions. If enacted, the legislation would represent the first major change in United States trade policy since the Second World War, and the first legal change since 1962. The European Economic Community is particularly concerned about a so-called trigger device which establishes a series of tests designed to make it easier for American industries to complain to the Tariff Commission about rising imports. The proposal could lead to quotas, or higher tariffs, on a number of articles. The bill, which would reduce textile imports by over 30 per cent, and shoes by about 40 per cent, would go into effect next January. The measure also contains provisions calling for im-

port or tariff quotas on oil, mink fur skins and glycerene, a chemical used in pharmaceutical and food products. The President, however, would be able to exempt any country from quotas if he determined that her imports •were not disrupting the United States market or that it was not in the national interest to enforce quotas.