AMERICA’S TARIFF POLICY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 64, 13 February 1936, Page 8

AMERICA’S TARIFF POLICY.

SIGNIFICANCE OF CANADIAN AGREEMENT. The signing of the trade agreement with Canada lust November was an important development in the tarirf policy of the United States. Taken in conjunction with public statements made recently by President Roosevelt and Mr Cordell Hull, it indicates a great forward move in the belated American programme of tarilf reform. The agreement affects more than three-fourths of the dutiable exports to Canada from the United States, and about two-thirds of the total imports from Canada into the United States. The Canadian agreement, moreover, was the seventh negotiated under the new Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act. 'Plie others, with the dates of signature, are :—Cuba, August 24, 1934; Brazil, February 2, 1935; Belgium, February 27, 1935; Haiti, March 25, 1935; Sweden, May 25, 1935; and Colombia, September 13, 1935. Except for the agreement with Cuba, the concessions made in the agreements are extended to the produce of all countries, whether they have treaties with the United States or not, providing they do. not discriminate against tiie trade of the United States. This policy is in consonance with that laid down by the Paris congress of the International Chamber of Commerce last year, namely, “that bilateral trade agreements with the strict observance of the unconditional most-favoured nation clause be negotiated as rapidly as possible.” The application of such reciprocal adjustment to trade of the magnitude of that between Canada and the United States thus becomes of Wvorld significance. Dutiable products upon which the United States reduced the rates are products of which Canada is the principal supplier, furnishing 94 per cent, of the total imports of these commodities from all . counti.ies combined. American goods will receive the benefits of the intermediate rates of the Canadian tariff, and also the still lower rates fixed by Canada in trade agreements with other nonBritish countries. The concessions granted to the United States by Canada will be generalised to other nations by Canada’s most-fav-oured-nation treaties. Canada now has unconditional most - favoured - nation treaties and agreements, with Argentina Belgium, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Estlionia, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway Portugal, Rumania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. The treaty came into force on January 1 last, and will remain in force until December ' 31, 1938, with provisions for extension after that date. The International Chamber of Commerce cjuotes Mr Cordell Hull, the United States Secretary of State, as follows: —“Each trade agreement which the American Government signs under the unconditional most-favoured-nation principle, has a cumulative effect on the reduction of trade bar-

riers throughout the world. Our programme is, therefore, to be considered as a trade restorative effort aimed not only at the restoration of the profitable volume of international trade the world over, which is essential for the restoration of prosperity in the United States on a sound basis. Our programme is essentially an effort to substitute the instruments of commercial peace for those of commercial warlare, and thus to provide an important ele- ; ment in the maintenance of peace itself.” In the same strain, President Roosevelt, in a message to the National Foreign Trade Convention at Houston,Texas, in November,' said: .“The only practicable way to assure American trade of protection against injurious trade barriers in foreign countries is to join with those countries in a concerted effort to reduce excessive trade restrictions and to re-establish coin-1 mercial relations on a non-discrimina-1 tory basis. This is the kernel of the American trade agreements programme.” i