Office of the Historian

340. Note Verbale From the European Economic Community to the U.S. Mission to the European Communities1

Brussels, December 13, 1966.

The Directorate General of External Relations presents its compliments to the United States Mission and has the honor to refer to the proposal of the Federal Trade Commission to amend the “Rules and Regulations under the Wool Products Labeling Act of 1939” by the insertion of a new paragraph 300.36 made public through the notification of the Trade Commission on September 12, 1966.2

It appears from this proposal that, if the new measures should enter into effect, all importations of wool products within the meaning of the “ [Page 815] Wool Labeling Act” would be detained by American customs authorities until they had received either a certificate indicating satisfactory results of an examination of a sample of the merchandise in question by an approved laboratory, or a notification from the Federal Trade Commission stating that it would not require such tests or certificates. If it is true that, in the absence of such notification, customs could release the products in question on condition that a security be given to it, the importer could, however, not dispose freely of his merchandise before the laboratory examinations had been carried out, or the Federal Trade Commission had officially waived them. The American producers, on the other hand, would continue to submit only to the obligations of article 31 of the regulation in keeping records on the exact composition of their production.

The Community industry is extremely worried by the plan in question. Its fears are centered primarily on the following aspects:

  • —the large trade volume affected by the measures: the value of European exports alone would be between 70 and 300 million dollars;
  • —the financial charges falling on the importers, not only for the laboratory analyses, but also for warehousing the products pending completion of all the new formalities;
  • —the inevitable duration of these formalities, taking account of the limited number of qualified laboratories and experts able to carry out the prescribed tests;
  • —the serious consequences that this delay in customs clearance is bound to have on the future development of American importations in a field which is already highly competitive and where the importance of fashion and season requires the strictest respect of delivery schedules;
  • —the discriminatory treatment between foreign exporters and domestic producers.

The United States Mission is certainly aware that these concerns, which have been abundantly expressed to the American authorities at the recent hearings in Washington, are shared by other countries.

The Directorate General of External Relations wants to inform the United States Mission of its concerns in this matter. Putting off temporarily any assessment of these measures in regard to the applicable provisions of GATT, as well as the principles which govern the trade negotiations currently in progress in Geneva, the Directorate General requests the American Mission to inform it as to what its government plans to do with the proposals of the Federal Trade Commission in the light of the above mentioned hearings.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, INCO–WOOL. Unclassified. The source text is the enclosure to ECBUS A–341 from Brussels, December 23, which was also sent to Bonn, The Hague, London, Luxembourg, Paris, Rome, and Geneva. The airgram indicates that the text is a Mission translation of the Note Verbale. The date is taken from information provided in the airgram.↩
  2. Regarding Rule 36, see Document 339.↩