Promise Paid

During the 1968 election campaign, Richard Nixon was heard to say that "Jack Kennedy stole North and South Carolina from me in 1960. It's not going to happen again." With that, Candidate Nixon, like Kennedy in 1960, promised a group of textile manufacturers that he would support restrictions on imports of foreign-made textiles. Having thus helped himself to win South Carolina, President Nixon last week delivered on his promise.

After the latest round of negotiations between the U.S. and Japan broke down, Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans announced the Administration's support for a bill to reduce textile imports to 1967-68 levels. That would be a cut of 30%, or $643 million, from last year's total. The bill, proposed by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Wilbur Mills, seems certain to pass--at considerable cost to the free-trading image of the U.S. abroad. It is also expected that the U.S. will impose similar restrictions on textile imports from other parts of Asia, notably South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. And there is rising sentiment in Congress for quotas on many other kinds of imports, although the U.S. trade surplus reached a high $334 million in May.

Executive Watch. Japan's chief negotiator, Kiichi Miyazawa, Minister of International Trade and Industry, was under as much pressure from his country's textile men as Stans was from the U.S. industry. Accompanying Miyazawa to Washington and keeping close watch to see that he did not surrender too much, were 40 Japanese textile executives. Back home they had sponsored an advertising campaign with the slogan: "Do not give in Trademark to of the unreasonable demands." Trademark of the campaign was a bulldog, symbol of tenacity. Miyazawa offered to restrict shipments on 23 items that make up 60% of Japan's exports of synthetic textiles to the U.S. By restriction, however, he meant a growth rate of 12% to 15%. He also insisted that the agreement be for one year only, with no provision for renewal. Stans asked for a five-year agreement and was prepared to settle for three.

The impasse had one salutary effect in Japan. Anticipating mounting criticism abroad over their own trade barriers, Japanese government and industry leaders held talks aimed at speeding a planned program of liberalization.

Special Interests. The U.S., on the other hand, seems in no mood to encourage more imports. Nixon last week declined to back mandatory quotas for the shoe industry, but he did order the Tariff Commission to begin a study of shoe imports under the "escape clause" provision of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The move could lead to higher tariffs. Most important, Nixon has shelved a presidential task-force report calling for increased oil imports.

There is an even clearer case of ca tering to special interests. Last week Nixon ordered special government tax and technical aid to the U.S. barber-chair manufacturing industry, which is suffering from Japanese competition. The entire U.S. -owned industry consists of just one manufacturer, the Emil J. Paidar Co. of Chicago.

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