FOREIGN RELATIONS, 19 5 0, VOLUME I


  You are. however, requested to approve the present recommenda-
tions in order that negotiations can begin with the countries listed
above on September 28, or as soon as possible thereafter. Our offers
at that time will include only those which you have approved up to
that time with an indication, if necessary, that further offers may be
forthcoming as soon as required study and analysis can be made.
The negotiations are expected to last about six months and will be
secret, so that the final results of the negotiations would become public
late next spring at the earliest and the concessions would probably
become effective in June at the earliest.
  The recommendations of the Committee may be summarized as
follows:
  (a) that we request from the twenty-three countries involved in
these recommendations concessions in their tariffs on products ac-
counting (in 1948 or a selected representative year) for about two
billion dollars of their imports from us (reductions of duty, one and
a half billion dollars; duty bindings and free list bindings, approxi-
mately 500 million dollars). These requests cover major export items
such as wheat and wheat flour, fruit, tobacco, rice, cotton, refined
petroleum products, radios, refrigerators, office machinery, pharma-
ceuticals, motion pictures and hundreds of other items of interest
to agriculture and industry. Annex IV shows the total imports in
1948 into the twenty-three countries from the United States of prod-
ucts on which we have requested concessions.
   (b) that we offer concessions on products which in 1948 accounted
for 952 million dollars of our imports from all countries. Of this
amount, as shown in Annex V, imports of products on which duty
reductions are recommended accounted in that year for 896 million
dollars, duty bindings 55 million dollars: and free list bindings
amounting to about two hundred thousand dollars (most free-list
items are already bound free).
  Thus, though- our offers bulk smaller than our requests, a large
.proportion of the offers represents concessions in the form of duty
reductions. As explained above, further offers to these countries are
also expected to be made on items in the second supplementary list.
Our requests, naturally, include some leeway for bargaining and un-
doubtedly some of our requests will have to be modified or withdrawn.
But even so, it may also prove necessary to request authority to make
additional offers in the course of the negotiations in order to conclude
a mutually satisfactory agreement. Your approval of such additional
offers, and of the final results, will be requested.
   These recommendations have been prepared, in accordance with the
 customary trade-agreement procedures, on the basis of careful study
 and analysis by the Committee on Trade Agreements and its country
 subcommittees after full public hearings and consultation with tech-
 nical experts of the Government and of other interested organizations.
 The Committee had the benefit of commodity digests on export con-
 cessions to be sought, prepared by the Department of Commerce, and


Soo