يطبق
میکنه
CONFIDENTIAL
5.
Next I asked Cronk how the Administration felt about the prospect that the EEC and Japan might be implementing their GPSS on 1 July: (this would affect the timing and/or prospects for U.S. legislation for their own scheme? Cronk took the line that the State Department was not in the least embarrassed by the prospect that other countries might implement well before the U.S. were able to do so. What worried him however was the possibility that he had picked up in Paris of the U.K. modifying/its offer to bring it into line with the EEC scheme. While the British offer was on a significantly different basis than that of the EEC the U.S. offer stood a better chance of standing up in Congress but if it could plausibly be shown that the Japanese, EEC and British schemes were really much of a muchness then the U.S. offer might well fall foul of Congress. He therefore very - much hoped that we would maintain our intention to implement our existing offer; otherwise the prospects of tariff quotas being introduced in Congress would be significantly enhanced. (Although I did not mention the point to Conk I believe that Chairman Mills is himself not attracted by tariff quotas and it may be that in this matter the State Department are working with him to strengthen his hand in resisting them. But this is speculation.) As regards the Administration's legislative intentions Cronk said that an Administration bill was now in an advanced state of preparation and that informal discussions were taking place (or were about to take place he was a little vague) with Chairman Mills, The State Department hoped that these exchanges would lead to an early introduction of the bill with Mills' blessing although it was recognised that Mills might be reluctant to give it priority in the Ways and Means Committee until he felt he was safe on the textiles issue and could withstand pressure to use the bill as a vehicle for U.S. quota legislation. His hope was that an Administration bill would be tabled before the end of this month.
6.
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As regards the shape of the bill itself Cronk told me that present intentions are exactly on all fours with the U.S. published GPS offer. The bill was being drafted on the basis that it would not either schedule in detail all the beneficiaries nor would it impose a statutory restriction against benefit by countries giving reverse preferences. The intention was that the State Department would testify to the effect that beneficiary countries must accet some form of understanding that they would phase out any reverse preferences by 1975 at latest. This would probably be "written into the record" in the Congressional Committee Reports on the bill and accordingly be part of its legislative history, putting a virtual obligation on the Administration to secure that this was done, although leaving room for some flexibility. The testimony would also indicate that all the "group of 77" countries would be covered plus independent territories but with just one remaining questionmark: Hong Kong.
On Hong
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CONFIDENTIAL