Evening star., 1950-04-16
Tariffs, Dollars and Security


Beginning next September %, at Torquay,
England, the United States will take part in an
international trade conference at which it will
negotiate with seventeen countries on possible
tariff cuts affecting about $500 products. This
prospectus announced by the State Depart
ment-has led several members of Congress to
make some rather extreme statements about
how the meeting is likely to throw lot of
Americans out Of work.
Periodically, ever since the adoption of the
Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1884, similar
statements have been made prior to every such
tariff-cuttng conference as the onS slated for
Torquay. But the dire predictions made in those
statements have never come true Nor are the
latest ones-uttered long in advance of the meet
ing, without any knowledge of how big or small
the cuts will be-likely to come true either.
For it seems quite safe to assume that our
representatives at Torquay-in keeping with past
practice and with the spirit of our reciprocity
laW-wil see to it that serious injury is not done
to our own domestic business. Actually, accord
ing to informed guesses, the chances are that
the cuts will be less than those made at Geneva
in 1947. Moreover, starting late in May, there
will be two or three weeks of public hearings at
which any worried industry will be able to
appear here before the Federal Tariff Commits
sion to make arguments against reductions that
might endanger that industry. If the arguments
are sound, they will not be ignored in the Tor
quay negotiations.
Those negotiations of course, will be aimed
primarily at helping the countries of Western
Europe to export additional goods to us in order
to be able to acquire enough dollars to pay for
all the things they must import from us to live.
At present, as for several years past, we are
shipping much more to them than we are buying
from them. That is why we have the So-called
dollar gap Right now that gap is being closed
by our grants to them under the Marshall Plan.
It will continue to be closed in that way until
the plan comes to it's scheduled end in 1852.
After that unless steps are taken in the mean
time to help them their own way in trade
with u.s. We will either have to keep on giving
them aid or invite another crisis.
What this means, in addition to such things
as action by the Europeans to promote the inte-
grafton of their economies and to increase their
dollar receipts in fields like tourism, is that we
must take more of their goods. For the simple
truth is, stated by Marshall Plan Administrator
Paul G. Hoffman, that if we do not import we
cannot export, and if we cannot export, we
create production cutbacks and employment lay
offs in our own country. Most important of all,
II by 1852 our aid is cut off and the dollar gap
still yawns for want of a balanced and vigorous
two-way trade, both our friends and ourselves
will suffer not merely economic dislocations but
also dangerous setback in terms of security
viS-a-vis Russia.
1t may we'll be that new tariff cuts would
adversely affect some of our business though
Mr. Hoffman, who has in mind increased imports
amounting to only one-thrd of l per cent of
our total output, makes good case for the idea
that their effect would be utterly insignificant"
In any event, even If they created difficulties for
a few of our producers, those difficulties would
be far outweighed by the fact that our free
world would vastly benefit in both an economic
and security sense, If Western Europe could be
put back on pay-as-y -you-go basis by being given
a chance to export more to us.
Short of that it is difficult to see how a
new Western crisis can be averted in 1852 If
we do not lower barriers to enable our European
friends to sell more to us in order to earn enough
dollars to buy from u.s. then it would seem that
we must either continue to give them grants
indefinitely or let nature take it's course in a
way that could gravey imperil not, them alone
but us as WELL There are no easy alternatives.