Word: oma
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...head of the American Iron and Steel Institute is the industry's spokesman, said he did not recommend to Carter a so-called orderly marketing agreement, under which the Administration in effect would negotiate with other countries quotas on foreign steel to be shipped into the U.S. An OMA has been much talked about as a temporary balm for steel; similar agreements already restrict imports of shoes and color-television sets. The United Steelworkers of America is for a steel OMA, but the executives who met with Carter and Strauss last week declined to press for one. The steelmen...
Policymakers of the European Community have begun promoting what they call "organized liberty of exchange"-an Orwellian euphemism coined by French Prime Minister Raymond Barre. It means negotiated agreements limiting imports during hard times. An American variant of that idea is the "orderly marketing agreement" (OMA), which is emerging as the Carter Administration's chief response to protectionist clamor...
...Administration has negotiated an QMA limiting imports of Japanese color-TV sets to 41% of their 1976 level (a restriction that obviously has not stopped Zenith from concluding that it will benefit by becoming a foreign manufacturer). Another OMA limits imports of shoes from Korea and Taiwan to 25% and 20% respectively. The Government is now under heavy pressure to negotiate an OMA in steel. One reason: privately owned U.S. companies have to compete with foreign mills that are either government-owned or heavily subsidized...
Whether an OMA would really help the steel industry is open to question. In a study sent to President Carter last week, the Council on Wage and Price Stability contended that restricting imports would not solve the industry's biggest problem: high costs brought on by a failure to modernize and by generous wage boosts. That problem illustrates one of the traditional arguments against protectionism: it saves industries only from the consequences of their own inefficiency. Another strong argument is that protectionism fans inflation by denying some consumers the chance to choose inexpensive imports instead of high-priced domestic...
...case, for all their talk of organized free trade, European and Japanese policymakers would be angered by a steel OMA now. World trade talks are again in negotiation in Geneva; after getting nowhere for four years, U.S. and European negotiators have tentatively agreed on a plan to cut tariffs an average of 44% across the board. Such a reduction would help swing the talks toward ways of lowering trade barriers rather than raising new ones. But Belgian Foreign Minister Henri Simonet warns that a steel OMA might stop progress in the talks, and a U.S. Treasury official adds...