76. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Allen) to the United States Trade Representative (Brock)1
SUBJECT
- Follow-Up to Cancun Trade Discussions
Cancun confirmed our expectations that trade liberalization could be moved to the center of the economic relations between industrial and developing nations. This shift of attention would be advantageous in both economic and political terms, provided the process of trade negotiations with and for the benefit of the LDCs were carried out in the GATT, so as to enhance rather than undermine the multilateral system. As you point out, only in the GATT can we and the LDCs realistically hope to have “global negotiations” on trade issues that get results. To the extent GATT succeeds in engaging the LDCs and expanding their access to markets—in newly industrializing nations as well as the developed countries—their interest in the bloc confrontation type of UN Global Negotiations will diminish.
As preparations for the 1982 GATT ministerial meeting and the subsequent negotiations proceed,2 I suspect that we will be urged by special pleaders to agree to a diffused and cautious agenda. We also may be tempted to exclude the LDCs from the real decisions. I understand that your Geneva deputy, Mike Smith, is alert to these pitfalls and determined to demonstrate to the LDCs that GATT offers them fair participation in the making of trade rules and the best means of dismantling obstacles to their trade expansion. He will need all of our support in holding to these objectives.
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
- Source: Reagan Library, Douglas McMinn Files, Economic Summit Files, Mexico—Follow-Up. No classification marking.↩
- See footnote 2, Document 99.↩