Word: tariff
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...Tariff. At the top of the list stood the bill, introduced only a week before, giving the President authority to bargain with foreign nations for reciprocal tariff reductions, to reduce any U. S. tariff as much as 50%. Republicans are already stirring up a battle against it. The President felt he must get it on the books quickly to start tariff bargaining this summer and reinforce his other recovery measures by a trade revival. Last week Secretaries Hull, Wallace and Roper all appeared before Congressional committees to plead for its prompt passage...
...bill which the President sent to the Ways & Means Committee was actually briefer than his message. It would authorize him to make trade agreements of three years duration, with the proviso that thereafter they could be terminated on six months notice. His power to raise or lower tariffs by 50% to fulfill the terms of such agreements would not extend to putting articles on the free list or taking them off. He argued that such tariff-flexing was necessary to bargain with foreign nations and to put his bargains into effect without waiting for the uncertain assent of the Congress...
Republican Congressmen, old hands at tariff dealings, were not swayed by the President's persuasion. Immediately they raised a chorus of condemnation, seized the bill as a partisan issue. Senator McNary cried out that it was another Article X of the League of Nations. House Leader Snell called it "the most outrageous demand for authority ever voiced by any Executive in the history of this country." Even Senator Borah found himself shoulder to shoulder with Old Guardsmen when he declared that the bill was a demand that the Senate give up its treaty-making powers...
...long, hard fight loomed, and possibly an unsuccessful one if tariff-protected business took alarm. Since 1930 the President has had authority to raise or lower tariffs 50% on recommendation of the Tariff Commission after hearings to determine that such changes would "equalize manufacturing costs" at home and abroad. Under this authority a few tariffs have been raised, almost none lowered. The new bill places the responsibility for changes directly on the President...
Last week while the President waited for Congress to start its tariff battle, he went ahead with his other foreign trade plans. George N. Peek, who got out of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration because he felt that the U. S. farmer would be the loser by Brain Truster Tugwell's plans for restricting production, was brought back into the Administration fold on his own terms. He agreed to head the Export-Import Bank founded to promote Russian trade. Later he was also expected to take command of two other unformed banks, one to promote trade with Cuba, the other...