Oldal 1 [1]
OCR
A.N2 for Au t THE PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN TRADE WITH EUROPE. The political aspects of the American electoral can= paign are so overshadowing many other aspects of this same event, that only to many observers are to prone to overlook the great impact of these elections on the commercial relations between the United States and Europe. fraditionally the Democrats in America are the party of free trade, The Republicans are protectionnistse While it is perhaps unreasonable to say this with this brutality, there is never theless much reality to this consideration, It was the Republicans wha introduced the great prohibitive custom barriers under the administration of McKinley. These rose to 59% ad valorem. Each time the Republicans were in power or close to power, this policy of ultra protection was applied. When the Democrats were firmly in control, down went the custom barriers. Thus, for instance, in the T.D.Roosevelt administration, the ad valorem percentage was scaled down from 59% to almost 157. This is easily understood, if we consider the basic support of the Democrats : the South and its vast economic interests like cotton, tobacco, cattle and oil are safe on their domestic market and have a great interest in exports ; as to their northern support, the big city worker, his main interest is cheap consumer's goods, which are also served by low custom barriers, The Republicans on the other hand are the big industrial anterests of the North, working primarily for the home=narket, and interested at selling at prices sufficiently high to meet the competition of the cheaper labour-cists of other countries. It ig hence interesting, that with the increasing impor= tence of the R -publicans in the present election year, the American Foreign Trade policy is increasingly tending towards a high astom's barrier for the protection of the domestic market. Even as near as last year, when the Delegates for the General Agreement on Tarrifis and Trade met at Torquay, the Delegates saw no great objection to the demand of the Ameriacan Delegation for the insertion of a so-called Escape-Clatise in the agreement, aimed at giving the American Governement the right +o establish higher tariffs in case that massive imports from Europe would menace the existence of a national domestic American industry. The European acceptance of this condition was due to two beliefs : first, that there is no lixelyhood of a decrease of the American prosperity in the coming year ; second the continued aS szállta há ee
