Officially Neutral

Discontent seethed through a knot of delegates last week as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sat down in Washington for its 47th annual meeting. A top item on the agenda was an annual policy statement that was expected to repeat the chamber's traditionally liberal view of foreign trade, plumping for reduction of tariffs and elimination of quotas. Only a week before, four Congressmen at the biennial meeting of the International Chamber of Commerce in Washington had warned that protectionism is on the rise in the U.S. Now a group of chamber members set out to prove it. Representing the rope, bicycle, textile, brass and copper industries, all hard hit by foreign competition, they huddled at a Washington hotel and agreed to apply some skillful pressure to weaken the chamber's free-trade policy.

While they worked behind the scenes, President Eisenhower appeared at the meeting to make a plea for his foreign-aid program. Part of that program, said Ike, is "a freer flow of world trade. We must do this without prejudice to our national security and without inflicting undue hardship on our local producers. Especially among the less-developed countries we must use every available means to assure that these people not only add to the free world's strength, but eventually become valued participants as both sellers and buyers in the markets of world trade."

Despite Ike's urging, it was soon clear that the protectionists had accomplished their task. When the chamber issued its 32-page policy statement, some of the strongest bids for free trade were deleted. Gone was the sentence: "For the benefit of the economy of the nation as a whole, business and Government should encourage increased imports into the U.S." Also struck out was the chamber's opposition to "Buy American legislation." A chamber spokesman denied that the chamber had changed its views, called the alterations in the text "little sops that helped quiet the opposition." But he conceded: "Now, the chamber has no policy on Buy American. From being against it, now we are officially neutral."

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