Speeding Up a Snail

Even for multinational economic negotiations, the trade talks among 93 nations sponsored by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade have been proceeding at a snail's pace. Negotiations were launched 30 months ago, and so far have accomplished next to nothing--mostly because the U.S. first had to get a law passed giving the President authority to offer concessions, then conduct Government-industry-labor consultations on its negotiating position. Last week, however, Chief U.S. Negotiator William N. Walker finally presented the first major U.S. proposal: all industrial nations should cut tariffs 50% to 60%. With that, the GATT talks in Geneva can finally get down to hard bargaining.

Results will not be lightning fast even now. The negotiators have given themselves until the end of next year to wrap up an agreement, and they will need the time. The tariff problem is only the first that must be resolved. In the past, the U.S. has advocated "linear" tariff cuts (reducing all tariffs by the same percentage); Europeans have wanted "harmonization" (extra-deep cuts in the highest tariffs). Even though tariffs in both the U.S. and the Common Market average between 9% and 10%, Europeans argue that U.S. duties are unevenly distributed between very high and very low rates, while theirs tend to cluster within a narrower range.

Another difficulty: the U.S. insists that its tariff-cutting formula be applied to agriculture as well as factory products so that American farmers can sell more food in the EEC. The Europeans consider their protectionist Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) a cornerstone of European unity and are reluctant to tamper with it. Even so, some sort of basic agreement on a tariff-cutting formula should be possible by this fall.

Tackling Barriers. At the same time, delegates must tackle an even tougher issue: nontariff barriers (NTBs), which have taken on increased importance as countries cut duties. NTBs include export subsidies, safety standards, customs procedures, packing and labeling regulations, import quotas and other means by which governments can bar imports. GATT experts have drawn up a list of 850 NTBS to be discussed, but no one expects that the negotiators will be able to eliminate more than a few.

For the U.S., the discussions might seem less urgent than they did when Richard Nixon proposed them in 1972. Nixon was seeking a way to stop what was then a hemorrhage of dollars out of the U.S. But last week the Government reported that the 1975 U.S. "basic" balance of payments (current transactions plus long-term capital movements) showed a surplus for the first time in the 15 years these figures have been recorded. Main reason for the improvement: higher sales of U.S. goods abroad as a result of previous dollar devaluations. Still, the GATT talks are hugely important to world prosperity. The volume of international trade last year dropped by 6%, to $731 billion.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.