36. Letter From the Secretary of Agriculture (Benson) to the President1
Dear Chief: The Government now has before it a proposal to adjust upward the tariff on foreign-made bicycles (Investigation #37 of the Tariff Commission).
We feel that the imposition of higher tariffs on the imports of bicycles will cause serious injury to the American farmer.
Four of the principal exporters of bicycles to the U.S. are the United Kingdom, West Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Last year these countries combined sold about $20 million worth of bicycles to the U.S. They bought over $1 billion worth of farm products from the U.S.
The bicycle case under current consideration is attracting considerable attention in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom and West Germany. Early in June, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz was in London, Bonn, and Paris, where he was in conference with high government officials in the Ministries of Agriculture, Commerce and Finance, relative to liberalization of trade restrictions against U.S. farm products being imported into those countries.
Assistant Secretary Butz reports that top government officials in London and Bonn, particularly, are quite perturbed over the possibility that U.S. tariffs on bicycles will be increased. These people probably have blown the bicycle case up out of proportion to its real importance. However, they are watching our action on it with keen interest. The foreign press is discussing it. They feel this is a special market in the U.S. which the British and the West Germans have developed themselves, and which the American manufacturers now want to take over. They feel the action we take in this case will demonstrate our sincerity (or lack of it) in our efforts to liberalize trade on a mutually beneficial basis.
Upon his return to the United States, Assistant Secretary Butz stressed with me his firm conviction that an upward adjustment in [Page 127] bicycle tariffs at this time would seriously impede our efforts to obtain liberalization of existing restrictions against import of agricultural products into the United Kingdom, West Germany, and France.
We would be very much concerned, therefore, if action taken in this matter should adversely affect our growing agricultural trade with the countries involved.
Faithfully yours,
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 411.004/7–1155. Assistant Secretary Butz, who prepared this letter for Benson’s signature, forwarded the draft to the Secretary with the following handwritten note: “This letter is written at suggestion of Gabe Hauge, with whom I discussed the European reaction to bicycle tariff. He feels the letter will help him ‘hold the line’. I cannot overstress the importance of this.” (Agriculture Department Records, Office of the Secretary, Foreign Relations 3) Copies of the letter were sent to the Secretaries of State and Commerce, to White House advisers Hauge and Randall, and to Gwynn Garnett, Administrator of the Foreign Agricultural Service. The Department of State copy was forwarded to Under Secretary Hoover on July 12 and was acknowledged in a letter from Hoover to Benson, July 19 (Department of State, Central Files, 411.004/7–1155)↩
- Printed from a copy which bears this stamped signature.↩