b. On the basis of information provided by the Tariff Commission, the President should be authorized, with or without receiving reciprocal concessions, to reduce tariffs by not more than one-half of rates in effect January 1, 1945, on products which are not being imported or which are being imported in negligible volume. Any such reductions should be made in steps spread over a period of 3 years.
c. The President should be authorized to reduce to 50 percent ad valorem, or its equivalent, any rate in excess of that ceiling, except that any such reduction should take place by stages over a period of 3 years.
d. Reductions in rates pursuant to the foregoing should not be cumulative as to any commodity.
e. In the exercise of these powers, the existing prenegotiation procedures, including public notice and hearings before the Tariff Cornmission and before an interdepartmental committee, should be followed and peril point determinations should be made. Moreover, the provisions of the escape clause should apply to tariff reductions made under this authority.
In extending the tariff-negotiating authority of the President, the Congress should direct that in future negotiations subdivisions of classification categories which would give rise to new confusion or controversy over classification be avoided to the maximum extent possible.
The President should make an annual report to the Congress on the operation of the trade agreements program including information on new negotiations undertaken, changes made in tariff rates, and reciprocal concessions obtained.
The delegation of power accorded the President, while broad in nature, nevertheless should be made in recognition of the fact that the trade agreements program has not been fully tested. Most of the period of its operation has been characterized by abnormal economic conditions of one kind or another. This fact argues for caution in applying the principles of the program extensively in the immediate future.
The escape clause and the peril point provisions should be retained.
However, the statute should be amended expressly to spell out the fact that the President is authorized to disregard findings under these provisions whenever he finds that the national interest of the United States requires it.
To date, the escape clause has been applied by the President with respect to only 3 products, despite the fact that there have been over 50 applications for the use of that clause in the past 5 years. There is no similar body of experience as yet with respect to the application of the peril point provisions. The application of these provisions on the basis of the national interest should provide adequate reassurance as to the stability of United States trade policy.
The same standards of sanitation and health should be applied to imported as to domestic goods. Plant and animal quarantine provisions should be maintained. The desirability of consulting with other countries, with a view to creating greater understanding abroad of the standards being enforced by the United States, should be studied.
The measures applied to imports by the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture to enforce our sanitary and health requirements and to prevent the spread of animal and plant disease are impediments to trade. Nevertheless, they must be maintained in our national interest. These restrictions would lead to less complaint, however, if they were more widely understood and if similar standards were more widely applied by other countries.
The recommendations we have made for tariff adjustment imply, we think clearly, gradual and carefully considered step-by-step action. Such an approach should make it possible for any companies, communities, and workers that might be affected to make their own adjustments in the same way that similar adjustments have been made in the past.
It must be borne in mind that in considering the matter of "international trade and its enlargement" the Commission was required to consider such enlargement as would be "consistent with a sound domestic economy." This qualification is as important as the positive part of the directive given us. Even abroad it is recognized that, national security having been assured, the most important single element essential to the expansion of world trade and strengthening of the free world is the maintenance of a sound and strong economy in the United States.