Discriminatory Tariffs Research Articles

Recent Developments in East-West Trade: The U.S. Perspective

Upon his return from the May, I972, Moscow Summit Conference, President Nixon announced that groundwork had been laid for a comprehensive trade agreement with the Union. Shortly thereafter in October, I972, the Union and the United States signed agreements on trade' and on settlement of the former's long-outstanding lend lease debt.2 The new agreements include new understandings between the parties on formerly insurmountable obstacles such as the repayment of lend lease indebtedness, the extension of reciprocal credits by instrumentalities of each party, the extension of most-favored-nation status to the Union, and sundry other provisions that have stood in the path of normalized trade relations for two and a half decades. The proposed Trade Reform Act of I973 introduced by the Administration in April, I973, would provide the requisite congressional approval for implementing the trade agreement's provisions concerning the grant of most-favored-nation status and the removal of discriminatory tariffs currently levied upon the importation of goods.3 Upon approval by Congress, the bill will signal the end of twenty-five years of artificially proscribed commercial relationships between the world's two largest economies. Until very recently, the subject of East-West trade has been evidenced by a great deal of legal writing and very little actual trade. After World War II, the trade policy of the United States with regard to communist countries remained virtually unchanged for more than two decades. During this period the Union and the countries that comprise the Soviet bloc turned to ready markets in Western Europe, Great Britain, Japan, and elsewhere. In recent years, however, due to recurring crop failures, the United States, as the world's largest producer of grain, has negotiated several large grain sales, but these sporadic shipments can hardly be characterized as an ongoing commercial relationship. The future prospect of a more enduring trade relation has required extensive readjustment of the legal framework in which these new commercial arrangements will be undertaken.

TARIFF DISCRIMINATION AND CYCLICAL TRADE FLOWS: THE CASE OF EFTA

JCMS: Journal of Common Market StudiesVolume 10, Issue 4 p. 314-325 TARIFF DISCRIMINATION AND CYCLICAL TRADE FLOWS: THE CASE OF EFTA Charles R. Chittle, Charles R. Chittle *This paper is based primarily upon my Ph.D. dissertation, ‘The Effects of a Trade-Preference Area on Import Instability’, Purdue University, 1969. I would especially like to thank Professor M. June Flanders for her advice, encouragement and inspiration; Professor Jay W. Wiley for his suggestions and counsel throughout my graduate career; and Professor John Carlson. I am also grateful to the reader for his valuable comments.Search for more papers by this author Charles R. Chittle, Charles R. Chittle *This paper is based primarily upon my Ph.D. dissertation, ‘The Effects of a Trade-Preference Area on Import Instability’, Purdue University, 1969. I would especially like to thank Professor M. June Flanders for her advice, encouragement and inspiration; Professor Jay W. Wiley for his suggestions and counsel throughout my graduate career; and Professor John Carlson. I am also grateful to the reader for his valuable comments.Search for more papers by this author First published: December 1971 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.1972.tb00906.x AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume10, Issue4December 1971Pages 314-325 RelatedInformation

The Revival of Trade between the "Communist Bloc" and the West

Since the death of Stalin, trade between the Western democracies and East European Communist countries has been on the increase. The economies of the Communist countries are evolving in a direction of lessened rigidity and greater diversity. The countries of West Europe, with a greater dependence on trade than the United States, have pursued trade with the Communist countries more than has the United States. The policy of the United States government is to expand East-West trade in peaceful goods. There are political as well as economic advantages to be gained by such trade. The President needs legislative authority to be able best to use trade relations with East Europe most effectively in the na tional interest. Such legislation would permit the United States to negotiate a removal of tariff discrimination in return for benefits from the Communist countries, such as nondiscriminatory treatment for United States businessmen, with respect to market and trading access, and agreement on settlement of disputes. Meaningful agreements between a free market system and state trading systems will not be easy to reach. However, the free market countries of West Europe have worked out agreements that have been mutually profitable. There is no reason why the United States cannot do the same, to our economic and political advantage.

Economic and Living Standards: American and Asiatic

THE Asiatic standard is one of extreme poverty. Poverty, however, is not in itself an economic problem. It becomes an economic problem at the point at which it vitally affects the economic standard. The wretched living conditions of the ricksha coolie constitute an economic problem only because this kind of extremely cheap labor prevents the modernization of transport.1 Asiatic poverty becomes, moreover, a world economic problem at the stage where it affects Western standards, a development which in turn accentuates the decay of the Asiatic economic standard, resulting in a mass poverty which quarantines Asiatic society from economic intercourse with the West. This renders the traditional Western economic policy, which aimed at barring the influx of cheap Eastern labor and products by tariff discrimination and immigration restriction, utterly pointless. It is like throwing up a dam in an emergency which imperatively requires the releasing of a stream. Traditional Free Trade and Protection are in fact hopelessly outdated as methods of economic policy toward the East. Both were evolved in the period of initial wealth-draining from the East; whereas now the need is to regain economic contact with the East. The mechanical approach of Free Trade and Protection cannot successfully grapple with this problem. An economic policy embodying both Free Trade and Protection, which check and balance each other, serves its purpose just so long as it can in practice be employed for transforming the Asiatic economic standard into Asiatic pur-

European Wars and Boston Trade, 1783-1815

New England vessels from trade with the British West Indies, their most valued pre-revolutionary customers. A limited trade, to be sure, was very soon permitted, at the insistence of the British colonists, between the United States and the British West Indies, but only in British bottoms and by British subjects.' This was no act of generosity to the new republic but a continuation of the old colonial system necessitated by the dependence of the island planters on American markets and produce. By this provision American foodstuffs, tobacco, livestock, and timber were admitted to the islands in exchange for West India rum and molasses. Boston shared the resentment of American shipping communities over the restrictions imposed, and in 1 785 the General Court of Massachusetts was induced to pass a discriminatory tariff against British imports;2 but this measure was ineffective to recover the lost trade. Occasional relief was offered at intervals when the number of British ships trading with the West Indian Islands became insufficient to supply and victual the colonists, so that a state of emergency would be declared by a provincial governor and