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to cut back on the existing level of textile imports but was prepared to give 5 per cent, 8 per cent, maybe even 10 per cent" annual growth. (As far
as I know he has not mentioned a growth figure of more than 5 per cent before.)
(e) It was hoped to take a new legislative
initiative on ASP and other matters "in the next few months", but the prospect of success depended on what was done over textiles.
(f) He had gained the impression from his talks in EEC capitals (and from a conversation with Dr. Schiller, the German Economics Minister during the latter's visit here) that there might be some disposition to re-examine the foreign trade effects of the common agricultural policy and he thought he had also made some impression on the Japanese over their investment and trade policies.
(8) In response to a question from Eric Midgley pointing out that we were absorbing imported textiles at a level which bore a far higher ratio to our total consumption than in the US, Stans said that our situations were different. By contrast with Lancashire which represented an old investment in obsolete plants, the US textile industry had been recently modernised by a large investment of new money.
I was sitting next to Stans at the table and emphasised to him privately our concern over the damage that would be done to international trade discipline if, in one way or another, the United States succeeded in imposing across the board textile restraints with ut demonstrating serious injury and in I suggested that if response to domestic political pressures.
this happened the cure, even for the United States, would be worse than the disease and asked what he thought would happen if restraints were imposed without GATT agreement and other countries
Stans simply repeated were left free, to take counter-action.
that textiles were in a highly unusual situation, though he
I also questioned agreed that I had raised an important point.
him on the same lines at the end of the lunch in the hearing of the company in order to emphasise our scepticism.
I think that for the moment we can only sit tight and see
There is how the debate within the Administration develops.
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