When I came to Washington in 1953 I was eager to see how our trade might develop under this program. It has developed substantially, as I think has been evidenced by the charts I have brought with me today and developed under the rules of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act. A Secretary of Commerce, if he is to do an honest job, must do what he can to provide protection both for the company and the worker who makes products for export and the company and the worker who compete with the foreign producer. In the light of this fact I have come to the inescapable conclusion that unless we walk a middle road in these trade matters our posture in the world will suffer and so will our trade. This bill attempts to walk this middle road and to give life and expression to my conviction that if either the free trader or the protectionist wins the argument they both will lose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I would like to ask some questions. You and the Secretary of State have used a figure of four and a half million American jobs. How do you get that figure? Secretary WEEKS. The figure is arrived at, Mr. Chairman, by estimates and studies made by the Bureau of the Census and the Department of Labor. I believe it was in 1947, was it not, that the last accurate rundown was made? The projections since that date have been carried on on a sequential manner and this is the estimate of the number of people who are engaged in manufacturing goods for export, who are engaged in handling imports, the service trades and those who are also engaged in the first stage of manufacture of the imported raw materials. Senator KERR. Well, then, what percentage of them would you estimate are employed by those engaged in or whose activities are connected with imports? Secretary WEEKS. Do we have that breakdown? We have these figures. United States employment attributable to foreign trade in 1956, exports: nonagricultural workers, 2,516,000; agricultural workers, 602,000. On the import side: in transportation and distribution, 524,000; in the processing of imported materials, 858,000. Senator KERR. That total is how much? Secretary WEEKS. Four million five hundred thousand. Senator KERR. I would like you to put in the record the authentication of those figures. Secretary WEEKS. Yes, sir; we will do that. (The Secretary of Commerce subsequently forwarded to the committee for insertion in the record the following further statement on a point raised by Senator Kerr:) (The charts referred to are as follows:) U. S. Department of Commerce. Includes also relatively small amounts of estimating errors and omissions, the bulk of which are believed to consist of unrecorded receipts. 1920 1925 U. S. Balance of International Payments (Billions of Dollars) Note. Military supplies and services transferred without reimbursement under Mutual Security Program are excluded both from exports of goods and services and from US Government ard. Because of estimating errors and omissions, there is a difference of about $0.8 billion between total payments and total receipts Certain pension payments and net private remittances are included in US purchases of services. Data are preliminary. US Department of Commerce |