23. Record of Action on Items Presented at the Cabinet Meeting0
August 19, 1959.
The following is the action taken on the items presented at the Cabinet meeting of Friday, August 7, 1959:
[Here follows the record of action on item 1.]
2. International Balance of Payments (Confidential)
Action:
- a)
- With respect to the short-term and long-term international balance
of payments problems of the United States, the President approved a
thorough examination of actions which might be desirable on three
fronts as follows:
- i)
- actions by other countries, e.g.:
- —to lessen discrimination (quotas and tariffs) against dollar goods;
- —to increase their share of allied military expenditures;
- —to increase their share of long-term financing of economic aid to underdeveloped areas by developing their loaning organizations capable of extending long-term loans to underdeveloped countries, and by extending their participation in new international development institutions, such as the International Development Association, toward a point comparable to typical U. S. participation;
- ii)
- actions by American business firms, e.g.:
- —to create a new attitude toward exports and to become more competitive in world markets;
- iii)
- actions by the Federal Government, e.g.:
- —to recognize that U.S. policies in the foreign financial and economic field appropriate to U.S. and European financial conditions in past years must now be reviewed and revised to accord with present balance of payments realities;
- —to continue its resolve to curb inflation and to translate this resolve into achievement;
- —to review military expenditures abroad to see where not only greater burden-sharing with Allies can be brought about, but to ascertain what expenditures can preferably be made in the United States;
- —to restrict ICA and Development Loan Fund financing to the purchase of U.S. goods and services, with due regard to the timing of the introduction of such a restriction;
- —to review such government-subsidized export programs as those under P.L. 480, and the barter program, to ensure that they will not add to balance of payments problems;
- —to consider all possible measures in export financing, such as through the Export-Import Bank (and consideration of limited export credit insurance) which could be taken to increase U.S. exports and thus help to overcome U.S. short-term and long-term balance of payments problems;
- —to examine closely the U.S. position in future tariff negotiations, to ensure maximum benefits to the United States;
- —to consider ways by which the American public can be made aware of these problems, of their importance, and of the steps which will be necessary to solve them (e.g., with particular reference to the opportunities which will be presented at the September meeting of the International Monetary Fund).
- b)
- This examination will be conducted by the Secretary of the Treasury through the National Advisory Council on International Monetary and Financial Problems, augmented by representatives from other interested agencies and utilizing studies such as those under way in the Council of Economic Advisers and in the Department of Commerce. The principal results of these studies will be submitted to the President.
- c)
- In view of the deleterious effect which untutored discussion of these matters can have both at home and abroad, the President requested that any public statements by U.S. Government officers on these problems, and especially with respect to the above-mentioned studies, be kept to a minimum and in all cases be checked beforehand with the Secretary of the Treasury.
[Here follows the record of action on item 3.]