CONFIDENTIAL
[?]
Depends on
Siłow
NON-COTTON TEXTILES
The present paper considers what might be said to
Mr Trezise if he comes to London shortly to discuss ways out of the impasse which the U.S. have reached on non-cotton textiles.
2. Since we shall be talking on the basis of the Prime Minister's message to the President we shall principally have to be ready to offer some amplification of solutions which we have said we would be ready to work out "jointly in the GATT" for any immediate difficulties where serious injury exists or threatens. We should, secondly, be ready to go over again the reasons why we are opposed to alternative, i.e. "comprehensive" solutions.
3. The central question which Trezise may put is what kind of result we think may come from handling the matter in the GATT which would be any improvement, either from the U.S. point of view or from the point of view of the general interest of GATT contracting partics, over purely bilateral arrangements which the U.3. might be able to arrive at. Ho may say that our insistence on evidence of injury implies that we wish the Americans to operate within Article X1X of GATT. They can do this without any general examination of their position in GATT. Do we therefore have in mind that the GATT would approve some arrangements outside the frame- work of Article X1X?
1
4. In considering possible answers to this question, we should recognise that we do not in fact want the Americans to observe fully the generally accepted requirement of Article X1X that its use should be non-discriminatory. We do not want to insist that the Americans restrict U.K.exports along with others. While we might claim compensation, which should leave us no worse off, the generally unsettling effect of a series of acts of compensation or retaliation by a number of countries would be unwelcome, and one of our main objectives is to contain the possible repercussions of any U.S. action on textiles,
1.