NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
proposed, and Trezise believed that a measure with the combined support of shoe and textile backers in Congress would be extremely diffialt to veto. He recognised the GATT consequences of imposed quotas but feared that this could be
the start of an international avalanche of
reciprocal trade restrictions.
he would 1th cum tit
3. He asked whether in this situation there
would be any chance of, working out a compro- mise solution regarding Hong Kong which could'
pattern set the burden for arrangements with other countries. If we were prepared to entertain the possibility of a solution on these lines
ld like to come to London very soon on some other pretext Given an encouraging
Λ response from us he would see if he could get approval for his visit within the State Department, but would not repeat NOT inform the Department of Commerce or their agencies.
He added that he would greatly prefer that
there were no Hong Kong representation either.
4. He had it in mind that Hong Kong might
agree to
(A)
(B)
voluntary export limitation on specific products, e.g. shirts and sweaters for which some presentable injury, case
could be offered;
an overall ceiling (say the 1969 level of trade with something added) on all
textile imports with no limitation as to
categories.
5. In our reply to Washington we made
following points.
(I) We saw possible advantage in encouraging
Tresize to come to London to talk about
textiles but would not wish him to feel
that we had let him come on false
pretences.
Our position was set out in
the Prime Minister's message to
3
JA
President Nixon which Tresize had not seen.
when he spoke to Ridley. If, having seen
it, he felt it worth while to discuss
it
with us how the USA might proceed within the general lines of the Prime Minister's
letter we should be very pleased to see
him