WORLD TRADE EARL ANDERSON, Senior Associate Editor
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Two weeks from now, top-level leaders from the six member-countries of the European Economic Community (EEC) will meet in Rome for what has been billed as a European Summit Conference. It is appropriate that they meet this year, and it is appropriate that they meet in Rome. These same countries signed the Treaty of Rome, birth certificate of the Common Market, 10 years ago. Although these European leaders will devote most of their attention to the maze of difficult problems that face EEC in the next 10 years of its life, they justifiably will reflect on the tremendous strides it has made in the first 10. This is also a good year for Americans to reflect upon the Common Market and upon their relationship with it. Why? This year is also the 20th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, without which there probably wouldn't have been a Treaty of Rome. This is also the year in which the four-year-old Kennedy round of tariff negotiations comes to an end in Geneva. Throughout these four years, the U.S. and EEC have been built up as chief adversaries in the trade talks. Sharp differences over such frustrating and difficult problems as American Selling Price, a world grains agreement, and access to EEC markets for U.S. agricultural products have led to the statement that the Kennedy round has made EEC an enemy in the minds of many Americans. This is absurd. EEC countries may no longer be the war-devastated allies that they were when the Marshall Plan was adopted to put them back on their feet. They may also not be, as they were in 1962 when the Trade Expansion Act was passed, a "New Europe," ready to admit Britain as a member, riding the crest of an economic boom, and ripe, so the Administration thought, for an Atlantic partnership with the U.S. The EEC is, in 1967, neither of these. But it certainly isn't an "enemy," even if the term is applied in a strictly economic sense. What it is is a competitor—a very formidable competitor. It is a massive market and trading bloc that, although still a lucrative target for U.S. exports, has a domestic industry of its own to supply many of its needs. And it should come as no surprise that the Common Market wants to protect that industry as much as possible. The EEC also competes with U.S. companies in U.S. markets. Exports to the U.S. have almost doubled since 1960, topped $4 billion last year. It tenaciously vies with us for business in world markets. None of these attributes make the Common Market an enemy. But, because it is a determined competitor and not the grateful recipient of an outpouring of U.S. materials, it may be time to reconsider U.S. trade policy. This policy, of course, has been one of trade liberalization ever since the days of the Marshall Plan (it may be more than coincidence that the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade also was negotiated in 1947). This does not imply a need to revert to rock-ribbed protectionism. Liberalized trade is fine, as long as it is not a one-way street. Perhaps the attitude that more American businessmen and government leaders should be considering is reflected in the remarks of William Roth, our special representative for trade negotiations. Mr. Roth has promised to walk out of the Kennedy round rather than accept anything less than a "fully reciprocal" bargain. By the time this appears in C&EN, we may know whether or not Mr. Roth means what he says. Meanwhile, President Johnson has instructed Mr. Roth to begin a long-term study of future U.S. trade policy. The Senate Finance Committee review of this country's entire international trade structure, which was scheduled to begin in April, is now expected to get under way later this month. What recommendations will come from these studies is beyond even wild guessing at this time. It seems obvious, however, that one conclusion the investigators cannot avoid i6 that the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, high-water mark of U.S. trade liberalization, was based on a series of miscalculations.
