Office of the Historian

94. Memorandum From the Special Assistant in the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Leddy) to the Deputy Under Secretary of State (Dillon)1

Washington, June 14, 1957.

SUBJECT

  • Escape clause route for tariff increases on lead and zinc

If we were to be forced to use the escape clause provisions of GATT as justification for the proposed increases in the lead and zinc tariffs, we would run into some fairly serious difficulties:

1.
The proposal has already been made public without a prior finding of serious injury. It is being put forward as a permanent [Page 246] measure of tariff policy rather than as an emergency step to prevent serious injury in immediate circumstances.
2.
It would be difficult to tie the present action to the escape clause findings of the Tariff Commission of three years ago, which were rejected by the President.
3.
Presumably some sort of finding of injury (if the facts warrant it, which we don’t yet know) could be presented to the Congress by the Executive branch. But the failure in this single instance to use the Tariff Commission, which is assigned the responsibility for serious injury recommendations, would raise questions in Congress and elsewhere.

For these reasons, the use of the escape clause route (1) would make our presentation in GATT much more difficult than if we were to use Article XXVIII, and (2) might open the door to pressures on the Administration to handle other products in the same way. There would also be criticism that the Executive is circumventing the Tariff Commission, so far as the finding of serious injury is concerned, contrary to the intent of Congress as expressed in the Trade Agreement Act.

As you will see, the problem here is created not by the language of our international obligations under GATT—which is in fairly general terms—but by the consistent administrative practice which we have built up in attempting to fulfill those obligations in good faith. If the administrative practice is suddenly breached in an important case, the question of good faith will inevitably arise.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 394.41/6–1457. Confidential.↩