123. Memorandum From Acting Secretary of Commerce Trowbridge to the Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Balance of Payments (Fowler)1
SUBJECT
- Export Expansion Program
As you suggested, I have developed a rather substantial increase in our program for expanding our commercial exports. In order to get the program rolling, I am suggesting that the Balance of Payments Committee endorse our approach and that the President be asked to approve. The President could announce the program on May 23 in connection with granting “E” awards for excellence in exporting to ten companies at the White House.2 On this occasion he will indicate that he is authorizing the Department of Commerce to request additional funds from Congress in the form of a supplemental appropriation.
This supplemental appropriation for F.Y. 1968 would roughly double the on-going F.Y. 1967 level—from $14.4 million to $27.7 million. We are projecting a F.Y. 1969 appropriation request of $39.7 million. The Bureau of the Budget would review these requests in the normal way, of course, and all I am asking at this time is the approval in principle by the Balance of Payments Committee of this program of increased export promotion.
Our program for F.Y. 1968, including the supplemental appropriation, is self-contained, in the sense that no additional manpower would be expected to be provided by the Foreign Service. The F.Y. 1969 request [Page 356] will be coordinated with the Department of State to make certain that necessary Foreign Service support is included in State’s budget.
The expanded export promotion program is premised on (a) the need for larger surpluses in our trade account to help achieve a fundamental improvement in our current account earnings, and (b) sustained improvement in the trade account being achievable if U.S. industry is stimulated to make a greater continuing commitment to export. Expansion of Department of Commerce trade promotion services can assist materially, but other measures in export finance and the tax area are required if the goal of a substantial increase in exports is to be achieved.
The supplemental appropriation for F.Y. 1968 essentially calls for an increase in our existing types of export promotion activities. We would:
- 1.
- Expand our trade and industrial exhibitions overseas.
- 2.
- Open new trade centers overseas.
- 3.
- Undertake new trade missions and mobile trade fairs.
- 4.
- Expand our automated commercial information program, including new and intensified export trade development programs.
- 5.
- Expand our promotional programs in the United States to make U.S. industry more export-minded.
Additionally, in F.Y. 1968 we would make a start toward some newer techniques and programs which would become operative in F.Y. 1969. Most of the F.Y. 1968 program would be built on existing programs in the industrialized countries. In F.Y. 1969 we would continue to expand our efforts in hard-currency markets but would begin a more comprehensive and longer-range program in certain of the developing countries.
Our program is based, in part, on the April 3, 1967 recommendations of the National Export Expansion Council3 and can be expected to have widespread industry support.
The attachment provides a summary of the program and estimated costs.4 Multi-year funding is proposed for those aspects of the program requiring advance commitment authority.
- Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 40, Executive Secretariat Files: FRC 74 A 30, Balance of Payments Cabinet Committee. No classification marking. Drafted by Lawrence A. Fox, Director of the Bureau of International Commerce, on May 12.↩
- For this announcement by President Johnson on May 23, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1967, pp. 558–560.↩
- These recommendations have not been found.↩
- Not found.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this stamped signature.↩