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Conversation between Mr. Stewart Edwards of the Department of Trade and Industry and Mr. Bergsten, Senior Member of The White
House Staff.
On 23 October I took Mr. Stewart Edwards to see Mr. Bergsten of the White House Staff. The conversation turned on the Williams Commission, trade policy, the mechanism for dealing with foreign economic questions, the Mills Bill and Hong Kong.
2.
In reply to a question from Mr. Edwards, Mr. Bergsten confirmed that there was a proposal for setting up a new mechanism within the White House for evaluating and getting decisions on questions of foreign economic policy. He agreed when Mr. Edwards said there appeared to be no great future for the Office of the Special Trade Representative. He recalled that the Office of the Special Trade Representative had been set up to cope with the Kennedy Round but had since lost its raison d'etre. Mr. Bergsten said no decisions had yet been taken but what was envisaged was a body which would be comparable within its field to the National Security Council and the new Domestic Council.
3. Mr. Edwards asked what importance should be attached to the Williams Commission. Mr. Bergsten said that the Williams Commission, which was expected to report in mid-1971, was very significant. Depending on the content of the report and on the European situation (i.e. British entry into the Common Market) the Administration might hope to base legis- lation on it comparable to the Trade Expansion Act. The timing for such action would seem to lie between late 1971 and early 1973.
4. This led on to a discussion of the Trade Bill now before Congress. Mr. Bergsten said that there was at present no telling what would happen to the present Bill. He did not know whether it would pass the Congress or, if it did, in what form it would do So. Nor did he know what measures the Congress might attach the Bill to. It followed that he did not know either whether the Presidens would veto the Bill or, if he did, whether his veto would be upheld. He emphasised however that the President was genuinely a free trader and that the sole exception he had made was in regard to textiles. Mr. Bergsten recalled the President's firm statement that he would veto a Bill which went beyond what he himself had recommended. Mr. Bergsten commented however that the Bill had been "much improved" since the President had made this statement. He also observed that if the Trade Bill were not passed in this session of Congress there would certainly be another Trade Bill in the next Congress. Mr. Bergsten said that it would make an enormous difference opinion in the United States if, immediately after a decision had been reached on the enlargement of the European Economic Community, the Europeans could propose a new multilateral trade negotiation. A feeling was abroad in the United States, rightly or wrongly, that the United States had taken all the initiatives since World War II for freer trade and had got less than a fair deal in the negotiations. There was strong resentment against the EEC because of such things as the level of grain prices and the proliferation of association
/agreements
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CONFIDENTIAL
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