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THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
NVS (69)9
Copy No:
Meeting between the Prime Minister and President Nixon
3rd August 1969
American Trade Policy under the New Administration
(including textiles)
Brief by Board of Trade
Since the war the underlying basis of United States trade
policy, like that of the United Kingdom, has been to increase
prosperity and raise the standard of living through the development
of open and non-discriminatory trading. President Nixon has
repeatedly committed himself to free trade policies and has said
that he takes a "dim view" of the tendency to move towards quota
restrictions. He has however also stated that non-cotton textiles
represent a special case (cotton textiles imported from low-cost
countries are already restricted under the LTA).
President Nixon is not the first (American) President to give
pre-Election pledges to the textile industry without knowing all
the facts of the situation. Both Kennedy and Johnson did the
same and later found they could not implement their promises.
Apart from the internal political problems involved, the American
case for general restraint of textile imports is a very weak one.
The U.S. industry apart from one or two black spots is generally
prosperous; imports do not represent a large proportion of total
consumption, nor have they grown inordinately having regard to the
booming state of the U.S. economy; to take action to restrict
textile imports in these circumstances would open the door to a
world wide spread of protection, and to concentrate restrictions on
imports from countries such as Korea, Taiwan and Hongkong would be
a blow aimed at developing countries, who particularly need to
develop their export trade.
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