The United States has completed the larger part of its negotiations in the bilateral phase of the 1960-61 Tariff Conference held under the auspices of the Contracting Parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), in Geneva, Switzerland. This report includes the results of reciprocal negotiations with the European Economic Community (EEC), Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It also includes the results of renegotiations with the EEC. A separate volume is also being released reporting the results of a number of renegotiations of existing commitments both by other countries and by the United States. Together, these announcements cover 95 percent of United States export and import trade dealt with at the conference. Since some countries still have major negotiations to complete, it was not possible to conclude the conference at this time. When all negotiations of all countries are completed, the agreements will be incorporated into the several protocols that contain the terms and conditions under which the various countries' schedules annexed to it become effective. At that time, the results of the few remaining negotiations of the United States, which with one exception are now completed in substance, will be made public. The customary consolidated description and tabulation of concessions granted by the United States will be released then also. Because of the scope of the negotiations and the complexity of some of them, the conference, the fifth held for the purpose of reducing tariffs on a multilateral basis, was organized in two phases. The first phase, which commenced on September 1, 1960, was concerned principally with negotiations held under the provisions of Article XXIV:6 of the GATT with the Commission of the EEC acting on behalf of the Member States: second, or reciprocal phase, which began on May 29, 1961, was concerned principally with an exchange of new tariff concessions among interested countries. A number of renegotiations of existing commitments were held concurrently with the major negotiations in both phases. In the first, or Article XXIV:6 phase, the United States relinquished rights, deriving from its position as country of initial negotiation or principal supplier, to old concessions of the EEC Member States covering $1,488 million of trade, in return for new concessions on trade of $1,677 million.1/ of the $1,488 of old concessions, United States trade in those bound directly to the United States amounted to $900 million and of the total new concessions trade in the ones bound directly to the United States amounted to $1,583 million. 1/ In renegotiations involving the tariffs of other countries, the United States relinquished, in whole or in part, rights on trade of $175 million in return for $145 million of new concessions. In renegotiations involving the United States tariff, new commitments on trade of $30 million replaced previous commitments on trade of $86 million. In the reciprocal round, in agreements thus far signed, the United States granted direct concessions on $946 million of its imports in exchange for concessions benefitting United States exports amounting to $1,140 million from the 14 negotiating partners with which it has concluded formal agreements. The table on the following page shows in unevaluated terms, for the base year of the negotiation, the trade coverage of direct concessions involved in all United States negotiations now concluded. 1/ These figures exclude those products on which negotiations were deferred. the latest year for which import statistics of the other country concerned were available at the time of negotiation, usually 1959 or 1960. The latest figures available for the EEC were for 1958. In each of the individual negotiations the base year used for the United States is the same as that for the other country, for comparability, although 1960 United States import figures are also given in each case. In cases where more recent trade data of the other country have become available subsequent to the negotiations, they have been recapitulated in the general section of the individual country discussions. Renegotiations - General Recognizing that situations may arise requiring the modification of rates of duty on which contracting parties have made commitments, the General Agreement establishes regular procedures for the renegotiation of concessions. The renegotiations held during the 1960-61 Tariff Conference fell variously under the following provisions: Article XXVIII (for ordinary renegotiations), Article XXIV:6 (for renegotiations necessitated by tariff changes arising from the formation of a customs union), Article XIX (the so-called "escape clause", for products on which duties have been raised because increased imports are causing or threatening serious injury to a domestic industry), and Article II:5 (for tariff changes resulting from court decisions or administrative rulings). Negotiations undertaken under these various provisions, although arising under differing situations, all have the same purpose: that is, to maintain the previous balance of concessions, through a process of establishing new concessions designed to compensate for the adverse effects of the changes made in the old concessions. Article XXIV:6 Renegotiations The major renegotiation was that under paragraph 6 of Article XXIV. In this, the Commission of the EEC negotiated with the United States and other contracting parties having contractual rights in Member States' tariff concessions that had to be modified as these countries started moving toward the Common External Tariff (CXT). That process of modification, involving the downward movement of individual rates higher than the CXT and the upward movement of those below, started on January 1, 1961; it is due to be completed, in two more steps, by January 1, 1970 (or at the latest January 1, |