TNAG-0147-FCO40-183-Exports-of-textiles-to-United-States-of-America-1969 — Page 86

CONFIDENTIAL AND GUARD

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•Mr. Stewart

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BRITISH EMBASSY,

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WASHINGTON, D.C.

31 October, 1969,

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY Nɔ.4!

- CHOV 1589

MCC 13/2000/11

Thank you very much for your letter of 122 october,

It is most helpful to have this indication of thinking in London.

2.

In developing our tactics we need to keep constantly in mind the key role of President Nixon himself. In the first place it was he who gave the original political commitment, . which he has continued to affirm, to deal with non-cotton textile imports. It remains extremely important for him to consolidate and extend Republican support in the textile- producing States of the South, and there is no reason why the Southern Republican lobby which extracted the commitment from him should let him forget it. Nor will they be fully content with anything less than controls over all textile imports. (The mainly political motivation of the textile proposals goes a long way to explain why the American negotiators have continued to push an economically weak general case and at the same time have shown scarcely any interest in practical measures to deal with cases of genuine hardship.). If the President settles for something substantially less than this he risks damaging himself politically and it seems obvious that he would run this risk only if he were personally convinced that greater harm would otherwise result to wider U.S. interests, including generally liberal trade policies (which he honestly believes in). Secondly, the White House is getting a wide spectrum of pressure and advice on textiles from inside and outside the Administration. Such a situation is of course normal under the American system, but is rendered more acute than usual by the fact that within the Administration the responsibility for trade policy is broken up between the White House staff itself, the State and Commerce. Departments and the Special Trade Representative's Office, each with a different point of view and none with a clearly ascendant influence. The State Department is now probably more conscious than S.T.R. (where Gilbert is proving a figure of little con- sequence) of international trade implications; for some time they have in their heart of hearts favoured getting, away from insistence on comprehensive restraints. But State's voice does not stand out from the welter of conflicting counsel. Thirdly, it is getting increasingly evident that very little of what reaches

RECEIVED IN RSTRYN .51

W. Hughes, Esq., C.B., Board of Trade,

LONDON,

c.c.

5.W.1.

1

Sir E. Melville, K.C.M.G., UKMIS, Geneva. H. Cortazzi, Esq., C.M.G., Tokyo.

10 NOV 1969

11.000/004/1

K. C. Christofas, Esq., M.B.E., UKDEL, E.E.C., Brussele D. H. Jordan, Esq., M.B.E., Commerce & Industry Dept., F. G. K. Gallagher, Esq., C.M.G., F.C.O.

Hong Kong.

CONFIDENTIAL AND GUARD

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