270. Letter From the Special Representative for Trade Negotiations (Herter) to Jean Rey, Member of the Commission of the European Economic Community1
Dear Mr. Rey:
May I offer my congratulations to you and your fellow commissioners on the swiftness with which the Community decided upon common grains prices at the Council meeting this month. Now that the important internal question regarding unified grain price has been settled, I trust that we are in a position to move forward with the agricultural phase of the Kennedy Round negotiations.
You will recall that I wrote President Hallstein on July 21 to express the hope that your negotiators would be enabled to act more flexibly in order to achieve a mutual agreement on the treatment of agriculture in the negotiations.2 I was gratified by the statement in his reply to the effect [Page 695] that the Commission agreed that no effort should be spared to bring about the success of the Kennedy Round.3
In past discussions it has become clear that more flexibility is required on the part of the EEC negotiators. We are particularly concerned about the montant de soutien formula, which neither the United States nor, as far as we know, any other GATT member accepts as a general negotiating formula. We continue to believe firmly that genuine trade liberalization in agriculture must be achieved in the Kennedy Round, and mere binding of a montant de soutien would not accomplish this purpose. Our negotiators have also indicated our readiness to include in the negotiations agricultural support measures wherever appropriate and justified.
Despite the lack of real progress in agreeing on negotiating rules for agriculture, the United States decided to table its industrial exceptions list on November 16 in the interest of maintaining progress in the Kennedy Round. This decision in no way represented a weakening of our resolve that the negotiations in the Kennedy Round must cover both industry and agriculture.
Thus, the urgent test which I mentioned in my letter to President Hallstein still confronts us. The agricultural deadlock must soon be broken if the Kennedy Round is to succeed. I remain hopeful that the Community will find ways for its negotiators to act more flexibly in order to permit the substantive phase of the negotiations in both industry and agriculture to proceed early in 1965. To this end, I suggest that the Community and all major negotiating partners should agree promptly to a date as early as possible in 1965 on which to table agricultural offers designed to achieve the objectives set forth by the GATT Ministers for agricultural negotiations in the Kennedy Round.
I plan to be in Brussels and Geneva in the latter part of January. I look forward to discussing with you personally at that time the procedures to be followed in agriculture.
Most sincerely yours,
- Source: Kennedy Library, Herter Papers, Grain Negotiations, Box 9. Personal. The text of the letter was transmitted in circular telegram 1155, December 21, with Herter’s instructions to Tuthill to deliver the letter to Commissioner Rey. (Department of State, Central Files, FT 13–2 US) In Ecbus 657 from Brussels, December 23, Tuthill reported that he delivered the letter that morning to Rey, who made some preliminary comments and added he would provide an “initial written reply” the same day and a more formal reply in January after discussing the letter with the other Commissioners. (Ibid.) Rey’s initial reply was transmitted in Ecbus 664 from Brussels, December 23. (Ibid.) In early January Rey responded that the Commissioners would be happy to receive Herter at the end of January. They expressed “some surprise” at the contents of Herter’s letter but wanted to continue discussions on grains between the two delegations in Geneva. (Ecbus 710 from Brussels, January 13; ibid.)↩
- See Document 244.↩
- Ecbus 113 from Brussels, July 30, transmitted Hallstein’s reply to Herter. (Department of State, Central Files, FT 13–2 US)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩