Many bills proposed, but few passed

Press, 15 November 1984, Page 26

Many bills proposed, but few passed

NZPA staff correspondent, HUGH NEVILL Washington Amendments which would affect New Zealand’s trade with the United States are frequently proposed as bills to go through Congress, but few are seen as having any .real chance of passage. This, observers say, is the case of a proposal to restrict United States imports of caseinates put forward by Senator John Danforth as an amendment to the Omnibus International Trade Bill, passed by Congress on October 9.

New Zealand Embassy staff in Washington lobbied against its passage, as they do with all such amendments, and it was also opposed by the Administration, notably by the Trade Representative, Mr Bill Brock, as similar amendments have been in the past.

In the end it went out with the wash. A whole slew of protectionist amendments

were proposed, but rejected. The main thrust of the bill, passed 386 to one in the House of Representatives, was to extend tariff concessions to developing countries and to authorise the President to negotiate a free-trade agreement with Israel. There are often four or five amendments that would affect trade with New Zealand before Congress at any one time, and dozens that would affect other countries.

Their proposers are often aware they have no chance of passing, but it means they can go back to their electorates and tell their constituents they tried. The Reagan Administration is committed to antiprotectionism, and lobbies have to be very powerful to get protectionist measures passed. (Among the few that have succeeded have been the steel and textile industries and car manufac-

turers.) Danforth, a long-term foe of imports of New Zealand dairy products, represents Montana, a big dairying state.

Dairy farmers there and elsewhere have frequently tried to restrict imports of casein (New Zealand supplies more than half the casein used in the United States) even though it is not made in America.

This is because the Government price supported system makes it more profitable to divert the milk to other uses. American farmers’ contentions that other milk products can be used in place of caseihates have been rejected by inquiries. Classification of special milk proteins as new tariff items is a technicality. It gives recognition to their development as new items, and to the technology behind them.