Abstract
Following six rounds of multilateral negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) import duties on industrial goods have been reduced to very low levels.1 In fact, the average level of tariffs on manufactured and semi-manufactured products, weighted by trade between member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), is now 8.3 per cent for the United States, 8.4 per cent for the European Community, 10.2 per cent for the United Kingdom (ignoring Commonwealth preferences) and 10.9 per cent for Japan.2
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Notes
The outcome of the Roth enquiry was published just before President Johnson left office: Special Representative for Trade Negotiations, Future United States Foreign Trade Policy Roth Report (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1969).
The report of this exhaustive enquiry was published just one month after President Nixon announced his New Economic Policy on August 15, 1971: Presidential Commission on International Trade and Investment Policy, United States International Economic Policy in an Interdependent World Williams Report (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1971), together with two volumes of papers prepared for the Commission.
This was disclosed in testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress on February 19, 1968, and was subsequently published as William Roth, “The President’s Trade Policy Study”, The Atlantic Community Quarterly, Washington, Spring, 1968.
The concept of the effective rate of protection, which, in measuring the degree of protection afforded to an economic activity in terms of the value added to that activity, takes into account the duties levied on material inputs, is discussed in W. M. Corden, “The Structure of a Tariff System and the Effective Protective Rate”, Journal of Political Economy, Chicago, June, 1966.
Also see Harry G. Johnson, “The Theory of Tariff Structure, with special reference to World Trade and Development”, in Johnson and Peter B. Kenen (eds.), Trade and Development (Geneva: Libraire Droz, 1965). In addition see
Corden, The Theory of Protection (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).
For a brief discussion of the political factors necessitating the indusion of agriculture in future trade negotiations, see Hugh Corbet, “Global Challenge for Commercial Diplomacy”, Pacific Community Tokyo, October, 1971, pp. 233–35.
The arguments for an imaginative trade initiative are discussed in Raymond F. Mikesell, “American Trade Policy and Changes in World Trading Patterns”, The Annals Philadelphia, July, 1969.
This point, and others relating to this policy option are discussed in Gerard and Victoria Curzon, “Options After the Kennedy Round”, in Johnson (ed.), New Trade Strategy for the World Economy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969), pp. 56–59.
See Johnson, “Challenges Confronting Commonwealth Countries”, International Journal, Toronto, Winter, 1969.
The point is analysed in Edward English, “Tariffs and Trade”, in Canadian Tax Foundation, 1968 Conference Report (Toronto: Canadian Tax Foundation, 1969), quoted in
Corbet. et al., Trade Strategy and the Asian-Pacific Region (London: Allen & Unwin, 1971), p. 17.
The two proposals are discussed in Kenneth W. Dam, The GATT Law and International Economic Organisation (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 64–68.
The possibilities of linking to a general trade liberalisation agreement a system of generalised tariffpreferences in favour of developing countries are examined in David Wall, “Opportunities for Developing Countries”, in Johnson (ed.), Trade Strategy for Rich and Poor Nations (London: Allen & Unwin, 1971). Also see Mr. Wall’s paper in the present volume “Developing Countries in the Liberalisation of World Trade”, Chapter 4 below.
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© 1972 Trade Policy Research Centre
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Corbet, H., Johnson, H.G. (1972). Optional Negotiating Techniques on Industrial Tariffs. In: Towards an Open World Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-01712-6_3
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