Sugar-Coated Protectionism

Speaking in Manhattan last week, Commerce Secretary Sinclair ("Sinny") Weeks, who seems to persist in casting himself as spokesman for the reactionary minority of business leaders, took a highly protectionist position on tariff policy.* What he said ran counter to the Administration's efforts to reduce trade barriers.

President Eisenhower had persuaded Congress to 1) extend the reciprocal-trade act for one year; 2) set up a commission to study the problem. Last summer he appointed the 17-member commission, headed by Inland Steel Co.'s Clarence B. Randall (TIME, Aug. 24); advocates of freer trade had hopes that the commission would emerge with a program less protectionist than present laws.

In the teeth of such hopes, Weeks proposed last week that tariffs high enough to offset "differences in domestic and foreign labor costs" be fixed on manufactured goods in order to protect "the standard of living of American labor." Professional tariff lobbyists endorsed Weeks's idea. And Pennsylvania's high-tariff Republican Representative Richard M. Simpson said: "Those of us who believe in more protection rather than less take satisfaction in Secretary Weeks's speech, especially because he is a member of the Cabinet."

In the freer-trade camp, Weeks's speech set off alarms. Since lower labor costs are usually all that make it possible for foreign producers to sell in the U.S., a tariff plan such as Weeks's could exclude them from the U.S. market altogether. Weeks billed his plan as a compromise, but if adopted it would almost certainly raise more tariffs than it lowered.

*For a view contrary to Weeks's, see BUSINESS.

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