Word: protectionists
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Though West Germany continues to stand firm for free trade, pressure for protectionist measures is growing among other European nations. Last year the Common Market demanded that all its foreign steel suppliers freeze 1978 deliveries at 1976 levels. Also, 13 petrochemical companies formed a cartel in man-made fibers, carving up markets and agreeing to joint cuts in production. Says Fiat Chairman Giovanni Agnelli: "I don't at all like the idea of closing Europe off, but we must do it just for a while on condition that we emerge with a more competitive industry...
With the time gained by temporary protectionist measures and a subsistence diet of subsidies, Europe's threatened industries must accomplish a formidable task of rejuvenation. In West Germany, Strukturwandel (structural change) is constantly on the lips of industrialists, politicians, economists and union bosses. The term covers a variety of measures: a switch to profitable products, heavy investment in machinery, "rationalization," or reduction of labor forces where warranted, the retraining of surplus workers, even a shift of emphasis in the education system away from the humanities to technical training in new industries. "Our industry must manufacture goods that others...
...Protectionist pressures may intensify because South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore are becoming new Japans. Their advances have been nurtured by the West's aid, so it would be doubly tragic if the West tried to throttle them with tariffs and quotas. If protectionism bursts out, Whitman warns, "the worst casualties would be the least well-off countries. The industrialized countries would muddle through. But all economies would grow more slowly, and that would exacerbate the issue of income distribution. It's a lot easier to redistribute a growing pie than a stagnant...
...Japanese concede that, up to the mid-1960s, their trade policy was plainly protectionist. Since then, they claim, controls and regulations that hampered imports have been pulled down so far that they now have one of the most open domestic markets in the world. One reason U.S. companies still find that market so impenetrable, says Toshihiko Yano, formerly a top policymaker at Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry, is that they have ample room to grow at home and do not "want to take the time and trouble involved in exports. They have got to make...
...support of Republican Representatives Ed Derwinski and Tom Corcoran of Illinois and James Leach of Iowa. In the House Ways and Means Committee, Barber Conable of New York and other Republicans have defended the Administration's free-trade policies against the Democrats' more protectionist attitudes...