GENEVA — The United States and the world’s major trading nations reached agreement tonight in the Kennedy Round of talks on cutting tariffs and promoting trade worth billions of dollars a year. The announcement was made by George Weaver, U.S. under-secretary of commerce, as he left a meeting of the nations involved to iron out the final details. Experts say the reductions in customs duties will average 33 to 35 percent in 80-odd nations. This was less than the 50 percent slash that had been sought, but more than had ever before been achieved in tariff negotiations.
The agreement was worked out after four day-and-night sessions which climaxed more than five years of preparation. The final package included a variety of agreements. Among them were:
1 — Tariff reductions on some 6,300 industrial and farm items in world trade from animals, live, to waste and scrap. The cuts were made on a reciprocal basis, with every country in the agreement benefiting from new opportunities to export to the others.
2 — A new, higher minimum world grain price, $1.73 a bushel for hard red winter wheat at the dockside in ports on the Gulf of Mexico.
3 — An international food aid program of 4.5 million tons a year, with contributions from major industrial countries as well as the United States.
4 — An anti-dumping accord to protect businessmen from foreign competitors trying to export goods at less than cost.
Most of the benefits are expected to go to businessmen, especially importers and exporters. But many of the savings from lowered tariffs will be passed on to consumers.
The agreement came almost 24 hours after the ‘final’ deadline expired at midnight last night. Success came after the negotiators studied compromise proposals put forward by Eric Wyndham White, head of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
GATT sponsored the complex negotiations launched on the initiative of President Kennedy, who saw them as a way of reinforcing political ties in the Western world. — International Herald Tribune, May 16, 1967