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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 werk 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.
8. 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
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