Word: important
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Known as Smoot-Hawley after its legislative sponsors, the bill promptly fulfilled the worst fears of critics. A new panic seized the already battered stock market; the slide continued for two years. In raising import duties on scores of items, in some cases to 50%, the measure provoked angry retaliation by 25 of the nation's trading partners. U.S. exports fell by nearly two-thirds in just two years...
...into action against their better judgment. Florida Democrat Sam Gibbons, chairman of a Ways and Means subcommittee on trade, returned in early September from a 24-day swing through Asia alarmed by the prospects of foreign retaliation against American exports, especially farm products, if the bill restricting U.S. textile imports became law. "The Chinese told us without any equivocation, 'If we can't sell you our products, we can't buy your products,' " reported Gibbons. His conclusion: the bill is "about as horrible a piece of legislation as you can imagine." Still, he made no attempt to bottle up that...
...Senator William Cohen views it, Congress wants "to practice the Golden Rule." By striving to cut imports from countries thought to discriminate against U.S. products, says the Maine Republican, "we intend to do unto others what they do unto us." To President Reagan, however, the anti-import rumblings are sounds not of piety but of recklessness, the beginning of "a mindless stampede toward . . . economic disaster," as he put it at his news conference last week...
...expected Reagan veto, and what sort of amendments may be attached. A number of the cosponsors have signed on less out of any consuming desire to save the U.S. textile industry than out of a desire to turn the bill into a vehicle for amendments that would restrict imports of shoes and all manner of other products. But should they fail in that effort or be frustrated by a Reagan veto that sticks, the anti-import forces will not lack for other bills that would enable them to renew the fight...
While a falling dollar could boost U.S. inflation by raising import prices, the economists were confident that any increases will remain mild. They noted that labor costs, which make up some 65% of the retail value of most products, are continuing to rise at a modest pace. Raw material prices are also stable. The Labor Department reported last week that in August the Producer Price Index fell .3%, the sharpest decline in more than two years. Said Greenspan: "Overall, there is just no evidence of any acceleration of inflation...