Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR U.S. AND COMMON MARKET Two paragraphs of Peter B. Kenen's otherwise excellent article, "Kennedy's Tariff Battle" (NL, December 25, 1961), convey a misleading impression of the...
...ought to enter into a formal trading arrangement with Europe, and that Herter and Clayton had not taken sufficient precautions to guard against misinterpretation...
...The result would be especially damaging to Latin America, for it is already disadvantaged by the preferential treatment Europe gives to countries of tropical Africa...
...partnership with the Common Market...
...But the term "trade partnership" is dangerous language and the emphasis on Europe in the Herter-Clayton Report and in Administration statements invited misinterpretation...
...One way to ease the adjustment for the contested countries and to meet our principal objective of raising their living standards, would be to grant unilaterally to groups of contested countries, as distinguished from individual countries, the rights to free trade on their exports of raw materials to industrial countries...
...objective of enlarging the area of such a common market, and of, meanwhile, granting free or partially free trade by such a common market to imports from groups of less developed countries...
...partnership with the Common Market...
...The above excerpts should correct for your readers the erroneous impression left by the Kenen article as to the harmful effect on less developed or contested countries of the best known proposal for U.S...
...It should not be difficult to show the contested [less developed] countries that their best interests demand that they associate themselves in this historic process...
...Ellen Garwood Peter ?. Ken en replies: I am grateful to Ellen Garwood for correcting the record on the Herter-Clayton Report...
...It has happened to me...
...I quote from the Herter-Clayton Report to the Subcommittee on Foreign Economic Policy of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress: "Thus we recommend that the United States open negotiations, as soon as practicable, for a trade partnership with the European Common Market, at the same time stressing the absolute necessity of enlarging the area [Italics mine...
...Testifying before the Joint Economic Committee, Will Clayton, Dean Acheson and Christian Herter all spoke of a partnership with Europe...
...Professor Kenen states: "If the United States, Canada and Western Europe were to eliminate trade barriers within the Atlantic community, while leaving or raising such barriers against imports from the outside, the less developed countries would be at a serious commercial disadvantage in their most important export markets...
...Another way would be by reduction on import tariffs by the contested countries at the rate of 5 per cent per annum in consideration of the industrial countries reducing their duties at the rate of 10 per cent per annum...
...Austin, Tex...
...As pointed out, Herter and Clayton clearly state the The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...I was fully aware of their concern with the position of the less-developed countries and did not mean to suggest that they have advocated a preferential arrangement between the United States and the European Common Market...
...But there are advocates of formal union in the Administration's camp, and some of the other advocates of lower tariffs have been careless in their discussion of this most sensitive point...
...The doubts that I expressed in my article were, rather, that their own enthusiastic support for closer association between the United States and Europe could easily be misinterpreted to imply that the U.S...
...The points Kenen fails to mention are the statments in the Herter-Clayton Report which refute his assumption that advocates of partnership with the Common Market approve "leaving or raising" barriers against imports from the less developed countries, including Latin America...
...Anyone who has spoken or written on this subject knows how easily and frequently one can be misquoted or misinterpreted...
...AND COMMON MARKET Two paragraphs of Peter B. Kenen's otherwise excellent article, "Kennedy's Tariff Battle" (NL, December 25, 1961), convey a misleading impression of the proposals of at least two outstanding advocates of U.S...
Vol. 45 • February 1962 • No. 3
