Preparation of the USA for the Kennedy Round in GATT | Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta – Tomsk State University Journal. 2014. № 381. DOI: 10.17223/15617793/381/21

Preparation of the USA for the Kennedy Round in GATT

Kennedy's Administration considers trade negotiations in the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) as an important measure of promotion American trade expansion and strengthening the cohesion of the West through minimizing the economic tensions between the USA and the European Economic Community (EEC). In preparation for the forthcoming negotiations in 1962 the Trade Expansion Act (TEA) was adopted. It authorized the President to conclude commercial agreement with foreign countries for a period of 5 years and to reduce by 50% the customs duties in force on 17 July 1962. The TEA also allowed the American executive to negotiate the complete abolition of the US duties on all industrial products in which American trade with Western Europe represented more than 80% of the total world trade in the goods. The Trade Expansion Act made it possible for the first time to affect equal linear reductions in the tariffs, which represented a radical innovation in relation to the traditional practices of product by product negotiation. The TEA produced a solid base for Americans in trade negotiations in GATT, which began in 1964 and was named the Kennedy Round. The USA's principal objective in the Kennedy Round was to secure a substantial reduction in the EEC Common External Tariff and to persuade the EEC to give a more liberal character to the agricultural policy of the Community. Other measures of preparation for the Kennedy Round included the appointment of Herter the Special Representative for Trade Negotiations; revision of the US customs classification in order to approximate it to the customs classification of the EEC and simplify the process of comparison of separate commodity groups; making and discussing the list of products which were subject to reciprocal tariff reduction; preliminary consultations and bilateral informal talks with different countries-members of the Common Market. After the death of President Kennedy the Johnson's Administration continued the preparation for the Kennedy Round. However, the preliminary stage of the trade negotiations which lasted a year and half revealed many disagreements between the United States and the Common Market countries, the most important of which were the question of tariff disparities, non-tariff barriers of import and agricultural export subsidies. It predicted protracted and complicated negotiations during the Kennedy Round. There was no prospect that the USA would be able to achieve all its aims in the negotiations, especially those concerning the reduction of tariffs on agricultural products.

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Keywords

Kennedy Round, US trade policy, ЕEC, GATT, «раунд Кеннеди», торговая политика США, ЕЭС, ГАТТ

Authors

Name	Organization	E-mail
Lekarenko Oksana G.	Tomsk State University	olekarenko@gmail.com

Всего: 1

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