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Visit of M, Stans U.S. Secretary of Commerce
Meeting between the President and Mr, Stans 24th April,
A
1969
The President welcomed Kr. Stans and his party and expressed his encouragement
at President Nixon's support for free trade policies both in public statements and during his recent talks in this country.
2.
Mr. Stang said that his visit was a follow-on to President Mixon's visit; his purpose was not to negotiate on specific issues but to discuss trade problems of mutual interest and to set out the Administrations general policy on trade matters.
U.S. Trade Policy
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3. Mr. Stans said that President Nixon and others in the Administration had on mary occasions, both publicly and privately, declared their policy of moving towards great trade but that the achievement of this objective would depend largely on finding solutions to certain problems which existed on both sides of the Atlantic.
4.
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the G.N.P. had President Nixon was detersired to check inflation in the U.S. been rising at 5%, per acnum and he had already made several positive moves in this direction. The Administration wished to bring all possible pressures to bear to curb inflation even though this might entail paying a price by a rise in unemployment ard a certain amount of political dissatisfaction.
5.
Tho Adzinistration were seriously concerned by the U.S. Balance of Payments
and they situation there had been a number of helpful special factors in 1968
In particular the figures for the did not expect any significant improvement in 1969. first quarter of this year would be seriously affected by the dock strike on the East Coast. In an effort to improve their Balance of Payments they were paying particular attention to their own export efforts, There rezaired, however, strong contres of protectionism in the U.S. which wished to rectify the Balance of Payments situation by introducing curbs on imports. Mr. Stans said that the strength of this movement could be judged by the fact that, over 365 protectionist bills had been
President Nixon was most concerned laid before Congress by the time he left the U.S. at this wave of protectionism and wanted to take an early initiative to forestall any action by Congress.
6.
President Nixon attached particuler importance to the four freedoms
freedom to travel
freedom to trade
freedom to invest
freedom to exchange technology.
The Administration were doing all they could to remove the restrictions on outward travel and outward investmont imposed by the previous Administration, although some
They hoped to recover any resulting controls had to remain for the time being. deficit by increased trade and by promoting inward travel (the existing "travel gap" was running at $2 billion per annum).
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