Toward a New Frontier

President Kennedy said that the bill could "affect the unity of the West, the course of the cold war, and the growth of our nation for a generation or more to come." Commerce Secretary Luther H. Hodges called it "one of the most important pieces of legislation to have come before Congress in the last decade." They were talking about H.R. 9900, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962--perhaps the first New Frontier bill that really proposes to thrust to a new frontier.

The trade bill would empower the President to slash tariffs drastically--all the way down to zero on many categories of manufactured goods--in return for tariff concessions by other countries (TIME, Feb. 2 et seq.). Because it cuts far deeper than the old reciprocal trade program that it is designed to replace, the bill was expected to stir up fierce opposition. But last week, as the House Ways and Means Committee completed its second week of hearings on the measure, the opposition seemed more plaintive than ferocious.

The Art of the Possible. There was audible opposition, of course. Oscar R. Strackbein, chairman of the Nation-Wide Committee on Import-Export Policy and for a decade Washington's No. 1 professional lobbyist for trade barriers, warned that the bill would give the Administration "power to push domestic industries onto the ash heap." Spokesmen for firms that make machine tools, watches, bicycles, pianos and other products complained that tariff cuts would injure their industries. But these warnings and complaints seemed no more fervent, and perhaps less persuasive, than at hearings on reciprocal trade renewal in past years.

One big factor in taking steam out of the bill's opposition is that President Kennedy, master of the political "art of the possible," has mixed his freer-trade pigments with some protectionist coloration. He placated the textile industry, which can influence many a member of Congress, by negotiating a web of "voluntary" quotas on foreign textile exports to the U.S.--and the new trade bill, bold in its thrust against tariffs, conspicuously fails to make any dent in quotas or other nontariff trade restrictions.

Last week Kennedy did more warding off by proclaiming steep increases in tariffs on some kinds of carpets and glass. The increases had been recommended by the Tariff Commission, but the President was under no legal obligation to put them into effect. By doing so, he stirred predictable resentment in Europe and Japan, and cast doubt upon the sincerity of his own trade bill--but he also helped to win the votes of Congressmen with carpet or glassmaking plants in their districts.

Star Billing. Besides coping with the opposition to his bill, President Kennedy had to deal with a trade-bill crisis within his own Administration team. Before the Ways and Means hearings started, a skirmish broke out over who was going to get star billing as the lead-off Administration witness. Under Secretary of State George W. Ball, the principal framer of the bill, wanted to be the chief witness. But the Ways and Means Committee's Chairman Wilbur D. Mills, a staunch friend of the bill, wanted the Administration to lead off with Commerce Secretary Hodges. Mills's reasoning: the State Department is not popular in the House; starting off with State would emphasize the foreign relations aspects of the trade bill, intensify normal congressional wariness. Starting off with Commerce would put stress on the businesslike and business-benefiting aspects. Presidential staffmen sided with Mills, but Ball refused to yield. The result was a tense stalemate that ended abruptly when the President stepped in and handed down a verdict: Hodges first, then Ball.

Counting Hodges and Ball, the Administration sent five Cabinet secretaries and two deputy secretaries to testify for the bill--the weightiest delegation that Kennedy has so far dispatched to Capitol Hill on behalf of any bill. Gist of the Administration case:

The Trade Expansion Act is essentially a response to the great opportunity and the great challenge of the European Common Market. Said Secretary Hodges:"We need--we must have--a trade policy that will assure us access to this booming market." But as the Common Market moves toward its goal of abolishing tariffs between member nations and erecting a common external tariff wall, the U.S. could find its exports largely shut out. That is where the trade bill comes in. Its essential purpose, explained Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, is to enable the U.S. to "bargain down the outside tariff wall of the Common Market."*

What of the widespread fears that deep cuts in U.S. tariffs would open up the U.S. to a deluge of cheap-labor imports? Labor Secretary Arthur J. Goldberg testified that the "displacement" of U.S. workers as a result of tariff cuts would be "small" and would be "more than offset by the number of jobs generated by an expanding export trade." And for companies and workers injured by increased imports, there would be "adjustment assistance" loans and technical help for companies, relief payments for laid-off workers (up to 65% of the average weekly manufacturing wage for as long as 78 weeks).

Face to Face with Facts. In testimony before Ways and Means last week, both businessmen and labor leaders gave sturdy support to the Administration's case. Gillette Co.'s Board Chairman Carl J. Gilbert, head of the Committee for a National Trade Policy, said "the imperatives of 1962 call for a trade policy that is vigorously expansive--a policy that recognizes that competition both within and without our national borders is the life of trade and a major stimulant to domestic progress." Speaking for labor, A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany pointed up the importance of the bill's adjustment-assistance provisions. "Let us come face to face with hard facts," he said. "Yes, imports do take jobs away from American workers . . . Yes, imports do bring about the contraction or collapse of certain business enterprises . . . Mr. Chairman, the recognition of these facts by the pending bill is one of the most powerful arguments in its favor."The Ways and Means hearings still had two or three weeks left to go. After that, the bill must get through both the House and the Senate. It will probably be softened in some places. But there seemed a strong chance that the final measure would still justify the President's label of "a bold new instrument"

* Last week the challenge of that wall became a lot more urgent; meeting in Brussels, the Common Market's Council of Ministers agreed on a sharp speedup in tariff-revision timetables, both internal and external. The new schedule advances the date for getting the external wall two-thirds completed to July 1963. Previous target date: January 1966.

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