411.426/3–2850
The Director of the Office of International Trade Policy (Brown) to Senator Warren G. Magnuson
Dear Senator Magnuson: I have read a copy of the statement that you submitted to Senator Ellender’s Subcommittee of the Senate Committee commenting upon my testimony with respect to your proposed amendment to Section 22 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
Let me say first of all that you are quite correct that my statement on page 764 of the record, to the effect that under your amendment we could not accept “any limitation whatever” on the type of quota or fee which could be imposed under Section 22, goes too far. In making that statement I overlooked the limitation of 50 percent which the present Section 22 contains, and I am sending a copy of this letter to Senator Ellender so as to make that clear.
The negotiating problem with other countries which would be created by the amendment which you suggest nevertheless remains, for under that amendment we would be in a position where we would have to go to them and say that we must reserve the right unilaterally to cut their imports of agricultural products in half whenever we felt it necessary to use Section 22.
Your memorandum states that the State Department should have no objection to the proposed amendment unless it intends completely to vitiate Section 22 in the next round of negotiations; that this could be done if Subsection (f) remains unchanged; and that “the greatest danger of loss of the limited protection of Section 22 lies in what could be written into new, extended, or renegotiated agreements”.
You may be assured that the Department has not the slightest intention of entering into any agreement which would vitiate Section 22. Nevertheless, we would have no objection to an amendment to Subsection (f) which would guard against this possibility.
We suggest that the following language would meet the most important point which you have in mind and would at the same time preserve the provisions of Article XI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade quoted in your memorandum which have been worked out with such difficulty over so many months of international negotiation and which we believe permit the effective use of Section 22 and serve both the export and the import interests of American agriculture.
(Clause to be added at the end of Subsection (f)) “but no international agreement or amendment to an existing international agreement shall hereafter be entered into which does not permit the enforcement of this Section with respect to the articles and countries to which such agreement or amendment is applicable to the full extent [Page 1467] that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as entered into by the United States on October 30, 1947, permits such enforcement with respect to the articles and countries to which such General Agreement is applicable. Nothing in this Subsection shall prevent changes in rates of duty pursuant to Section 350 of the Tariff Act, as amended.”
I have submitted this language to Senator Ellender through a member of his staff.
Sincerely yours,