CONFIDENTIAL
members of their delegation (Leary (State Department), Matthieson (Commerce...
Dept.), Propps (Geneva Mission) and Brungart (OECD Delegation) ) as well as
lunch with Brungart, Leary and Propps, they gave no indication whatsoever
of what might eventually emerge from their internal debates. This is
undoubtedly due in large part to the forthcoming change of Administration
and complete uncertainty about the reactions to be expected from the new team.!
Nevertheless, I gained the impression that the State Department and Commerce Department have by now done quite a lot of work on some sort of ̈*
a draft of lists which will be presented to their new masters. From past statements it seems unlikely that the tariff quota method will be employed at all and it seems likely that there will be a not negligible list of initial exceptions. It seems probable as well that the preferences
proposed will involve tariff cuts rather than complete duty free entry. Despite pointed questioning from a number of people (including myself) in the corridors, it was also notable that the U.S. delegation refused to be
drawn or what their reaction was likely to be in the face of the extensive
employment by the EEC of tariff quotas and the all too likely refusal of the
Community to accept the abolition of reverse preferences in their associated
states when the Yaounde Convention is renewed later this year.
The only evidence I was able to get personally on the U.S. attitude to
Hong Kong followed their question to me on how we were reacting to the EEC
position on exclusion. When I replied in a fairly robust way along the
usual lines they appeared to be slightly embarrassed and fairly quickly changed the subject. This flimsy evidence is about all that I could get
hold of to support the rumour hat the Americans are also contemplating the
total exclusion of Hong Kong from benefiting under their scheme.
Canada
9.
The Canadian delegate (Monk) made a statement in plenary on his
Government's latest views on the various hypotheses of a scheme.
Apart
from their strong position on the exclusion of a longish list of what they
conceive to be primary commodities in chapters 25
+
99 of the BN, he said
/ that
CONFIDENTIAL
Page 30Page 31