A Blow for Freedom

A prime postwar goal of the U.S. has been to get the rest of the free world off the backs of U.S. taxpayers and earning dollars again. Yet every time a foreign product begins to make a dent in the U.S. market, a familiar cry rises: raise tariffs. Two months ago, under heavy pressure from some U.S. watchmakers and their workers, the U.S. Tariff Commission joined the chorus. A majority reccommended that import duties on Swiss and other watches be jacked up as much as 50%.

Last week Harry Truman, who had already rejected a similar plea on behalf of U.S. garlic growers (TIME, Aug. 4), took a hammer to the commission's argument and smashed it to smithereens. Wrote the President, in turning down the commission's recommendation: "The weight of evidence does not support the claim that our domestic watch industry has been seriously injured, or that there is a threat of serious injury . . . [Domestic] production of jewelled watches had nearly doubled in 1951, as compared with the annual average for the period 1936-40." With the U.S. now selling nearly twice as much goods ($216 million worth last year) to Switzerland as Switzerland sells to the U.S. ($131 million), the President thought that any new trade barriers would strike a "heavy blow at our whole effort to increase international trade and permit friendly nations to earn their own dollars and pay their own way in the world."

To the Swiss, whose watches account for more than half their exports to the U.S., the President's action was a welcome bit of evidence that the U.S. is practicing what it preaches about free world trade. Rejoiced the Journal de Geneve: "The decision taken by President Truman has a tremendous importance in reaffirming the confidence between his country and the free nations of Europe."

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