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THE MULTILATERAL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS: THE POSITION REACHED IN MID NOVEMBER 1977
1 What follows represents in broad terms the position reached as seen
in mid-November 1977.
a
There is now agreement among all parties to the negotiations to
attempt to conclude the preparatory phase by January 15, 1978
with a view to completing the negotiations as a whole in the
course of a few months thereafter. One reason for doing this is
that the US might find it easier to get a deal through Congress
in mid 1978 than later;
another is that some of the US
Administration's powers under the 1974 Trade Act expire at the
end of next year; although the negotiating authority provisions
continue for a further year.
b
There has been discussion among the main participants in the
negotiations of a hypothesis for tariffs on industrial products
under which high tariffs would be reduced by some 60% or more
and low tariffs by little or nothing: the reductions would be
spaced over 10 years; the weighted average reduction in tariffs
would amount to some 40% which would also be roughly the amount
of the reduction applying to a middling tariff of say 12%. This
hypothesis has not been formally endorsed by any major participant
in the negotiations although it has been welcomed as presenting
a possible way forward. On the part of the Community there is an
insistence that such a hypothesis can only be accepted if there
is a real chance to stop the tariff reductions half way through