Word: tariff
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Ceremony & Grand Cru. Humphrey arrived on the Continent in the same week that the last American flags were lowered at Rocquencourt, the NATO headquarters outside Paris on which French President Charles de Gaulle had posted an April 1 eviction notice. Simultaneously in Geneva, the Kennedy Round of tariff talks between the U.S. and the European Common Market were nearing an April 30 deadline with many problems still unresolved...
...disarray, looking for new, mainly diplomatic functions. The political groupings, from the Council of Europe to the creaky Arab League, are mere debating societies. By far the most important and promising groupings are economic, and the model that inspires all of them is the Common Market. By bringing down tariff barriers within a vast community of 180 million people, the Market rejuvenated Europe, demonstrated the power of modified free enterprise in the face of socialist theory, and changed the balance of forces in the world...
When these two "escape clause" tariffs were first raised to protect U.S. industry from the squeeze of foreign competition, the reaction in Europe was, to say the very least, negative. In 1962 Belgium raised its duties on U.S. chemicals within 48 hours after U.S. duties on sheet glass were increased. In 1954 the U.S. raised its tariff on imported watch movements. Since then, the Swiss have threatened to allow no significant tariff reductions unless the U.S. eased its stand. Now both countries are pleased, and the European Economic Community as a whole is more hopeful of concrete achievements...
...something France already tries to do, but not too successfully. Carried far enough, a policy of straitjacketing American companies would not only invite reprisals but would also tend to stagnate Europe's standard of living. Protectionist moves no longer succeed in Europe as they once did. With easing tariff barriers inside Europe, American firms escape unwelcome restrictions by shifting planned plants a few miles across a border. After several U.S. companies put factories in Germany or Belgium instead of France, De Gaulle's government took down its keep-out signs...
First, it gives the criminal the same kind of protection that a tariff might give a domestic monopoly; it guarantees the absence of competion from people who are unwilling to be criminal, and guarantees an advantage to those whose skill is in evading...