375. Editorial Note
On December 16, 1967, President Johnson signed Proclamation No. 3822, entitled “‘Proclamation To Carry Out Geneva (1967) Protocol to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and Other Agreements.” It reads in part as follows:
- “(1) Subject to the applicable provisions of the General Agreement, the Geneva (1967) Protocol, and other agreements supplemental to the General Agreement, the modification or continuance of existing duties or other import restrictions and the continuance of existing duty-free or excise treatment, provided for in Schedule XX (Geneva—1967), shall be effective on and after January 1, 1968, as provided for therein; and
- “(2) To this end and to give effect to related parts of other agreements, the Tariff Schedules of the United States are modified, effective on and after January 1, 1968, as provided for in Annexes II and III to this proclamation.” (82 Stat. 1455)
Upon signing the proclamation in the Cabinet Room at the White House, President Johnson said, among other things, that U.S. tariffs [Page 971] would drop on January 1 in the first of five annual reductions, lowering prices to consumers and costs to manufacturers. He hoped that equivalent lowering of tariffs by U.S. trading partners would result in greater American export sales. Negotiators at Geneva had driven a “hard bargain,” but he believed it was a “fair bargain” from which “all will gain.” For full text of his remarks, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1967, Book II, pages 1148–1150.
On President Johnson’s signing the proclamation, the Geneva (1967) Protocol to the GATT entered into force for the United States on January 1, 1968. The text of the Protocol is in General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade: Basic Instruments and Selected Documents, Fifteenth Supplement (Geneva, 1968), pages 5–8.