Unclassified-United States

(THE FOLLOWING PRODUCTS ARE INCLUDED IN THE RETURNS OF THOSE
COMPANIES WHICH COULD NOT FURNISH A BREAKDOWN OF
THEIR SHIPMENT BY TOWN AND CITY OF ORIGIN)

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Senator FREAR. I would like to have the record state that the chairman of the committee and other members of the committee have been absent this morning because of an important conference on the recently passed extension of the excise tax bill.

The committee will stand in recess until tomorrow at 10 o'clock. Thank you, gentlemen, for being patient, and I should not forget the ladies.

(By direction of the chairman, the following is made a part of the record:)

Hon. HARRY F. BYRD,

Chairman, Senate Finance Committee,

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, June 17, 1958.

Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR: Your committee now has before it a bill to extend the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act. This bill is designated as H. R. 12591.

In connection with this bill, we are taking the liberty of enclosing a copy of our letter dated March 5, 1958, addressed to the Honorable Wilbur D. Mills, relative to this bill. We are also enclosing copies of a resolution adopted by the foreign trade bureau of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Chamber of Commerce, the resident membership roster of the foreign trade bureau, and a brochure entitled "Foreign Trade and Cedar Rapids, Iowa."

Our position has not changed since the above letter was directed to Congressman Mills. We are still of the opinion that favorable passage of H. R. 12591 without crippling amendments will be in the best interests of our national economy.

We urge the favorable passage of this bill by your committee.

Respectfully yours,

Hon. WILBUR D. MILLS,

T. A. PARKS, Chairman, Foreign Trade Bureau. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, March 5, 1958.

Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means,

House of Representatives.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce, representing 49 firms and industries directly or indirectly engaged in foreign trade, strongly feels that it would be detrimental to the Nation, and to Cedar Rapids, should Congress fail to extend the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934.

Working within the framework of this act, the United States has increased its markets abroad, through reciprocally lowering tariff and trade barriers and liberalizing trade regulations, and occupying millions of our labor force.

Congress must recognize that it is to the vital interest of the American people that restraints on the free flow of international trade be kept to a minimum and protective measures be regarded as exceptions to be individually dealt with as provided by this law. Nations and peoples buying from the United States must also sell to the United States, necessarily demanding a mutually beneficial two-way international trade. World trade is a necessary factor for world stability and peace, and United States leadership in the field of economic foreign policy must be maintained for the sake of the free world, lest we drive our free nations to turn to Russia as a customer and supplier. This places in the hands of communism the potential to govern the involved nations economic well-being by either becoming their chief market, orientating their economy toward the communistic bloc, or refusing to offer this market, preferring to encourage economic collapse and consequently paving the way for dissatisfaction, infiltration, and eventual political domination.

The United States foreign economic policy should be designed to facilitate the sound growth and development of commerce with other friendly countries, to expand their productive capacity, to increase their ability to earn foreign exchange and to repay loans, lessening their need for direct United States Government financial aid. Simultaneously we must further increase our volume of exports and imports, which surpassed $30 billion annually in 1956, to preserve this important economic keystone of our peace, prosperity, and welfare. This difficult dual-purpose program cannot be properly directed without well-defined

legislation, a function which has been beneficially served in a proven manner by the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act.

It must be further recognized that the growth of the European Common Market will present the United States with a solid front with whom we must be prepared to intelligently and constructively bargain over a long-term period. This Economic Community will necessarily diminish the bargaining position of the United States, creating a need which must be met under competent guidance of a firm long-range policy, as dictated by the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act. Failure to clearly indicate our position and abilities to enter long-term agreements with such an economic front can bring undesirable reciprocal effects unparalleled in United States history, potentially creating a third international bloc closed to our volume commerce.

A view that the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act has not been beneficial ignores the facts. The remarkable increase in trade from $3.8 billion in 1934 to $32.5 billion in 1957 has created substantial benefits, not the least of which is the 4.5 million workers who derive their jobs directly from foreign trade. In Cedar Rapids, exporting 25 to 35 million dollars in goods each year, foreign trade creates a job for 1 out of every 10 people engaged in industry. In many areas of the United States, Cedar Rapids included, any significant slackening of this foreign trade would be multiplied in scope by its adverse effect on those serving the direct recipients of income from foreign trade. The extent of this is impossible to measure, but the level of prosperity existent in these areas under present conditions gives loud voice to the success of reciprocal trade. Discontinuance of the act means destroying our established rules in American foreign trade, rules which establish essential protection procedures as well as benefit that large segment of our economy desirably affected by the expansion of foreign trade.

As it is with the Nation, so it is with Cedar Rapids, Iowa, whose workers and families realize that foreign trade has helped to give them their high effective buying power of $5,334 annually, after taxes. Cedar Rapids is generally believed to be the largest per capita tonnage exporting city in the United States and, recognizing the paramount importance to the Nation and the world of a continuance of the reciprocal trade program, expresses serious concern with a move to turn the clock back to a tariff program that would restrict trade and undermine our economic and political position in world trade.

We solicit the Congress of the United States to authorize a 10-year renewal of the reciprocal trade agreements program beyond June 30, 1958, and to endorse constructive changes in its operating provisions in the direction of trade liberalization.

T. A. PARKS, Chairman, Foreign Trade Bureau.

SUMMARY RESOLUTION

Whereas the heart of our foreign trade policy, the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, inaugurated in 1934, has been successful in promoting international trade throughout the world, and resulted in record levels of United States exports and imports as well as progress and prosperity in friendly foreign nations through a greatly expanded worldwide exchange of goods, and

Whereas working within the framework of the reciprocal trade agreements program, the United States has increased its markets abroad by reciprocally lowering tariff and trade barriers and liberalizing trade regulations, and

Whereas it is to the vital interest of the American people that restraints in free flow of international trade be kept to a minimum and protective measures be regarded as exceptions, and

Whereas world trade is a necessary factor for world stability and peace and United States leadership in the field of economic foreign policy must be maintained for the sake of the entire free world, and

Whereas it is recognized that nations and peoples buying from the United States must also sell to the United States and this necessarily makes for mutually beneficial two-way international trade, and

Whereas the United States foreign economic policy is to facilitate the sound growth and development of commerce with other friendly countries, to expand their productive capacity, to increase their ability to earn foreign exchange and to repay loans, and to lessen their need for direct United States Government financial aid, and

Whereas the total United States volume of exports and imports surpassed $30 billion annually in 1956 and is a keystone to our own peace, prosperity, and the welfare of our citizens, and

Whereas Cedar Rapids, Iowa is an important trading area where $25 million in manufactured goods and agricultural products is exported annually and 10 percent of the labor force either directly or indirectly earn their livelihood by foreign trade, and which city is generally believed to be the largest export city in the United States on a per capita basis, and

Whereas it is of the utmost importance that the gains made in world trade under the reciprocal trade agreements program be consolidated and expanded, and

Whereas to assure continuance of this beneficial and productive program it is necessary to rally all citizens to join in an effort to preserve this law when it comes up for renewal next year in Congress, and

Whereas Cedar Rapids, recognizing the paramount importance to the Nation and the world of a continuance of the reciprocal trade program, expresses serious concern with the move to turn the clock back to a tariff program that would restrict trade, and undermine our economic and political situation in world trade: Be it therefore

Resolved, That the Foreign Trade Bureau of Cedar Rapids, an organization dedicated to world trade and understanding, hereby requests Congress to authorize a 10-year renewal of the reciprocal trade agreement program beyond June 30, 1958, and endorses constructive changes in its operating provisions in the direction of trade liberalization.

TOM PARKS,

Chairman, Foreign Trade Bureau, Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce. Approved by the board of directors, Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce. LOU P. BOUDREAUX, President.

JANUARY 17, 1958.

FOREIGN TRADE AND CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA

Prepared by Foreign Trade Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, Cedar Springs, Iowa The United States is the world's greatest trading nation. No other nation on earth comes close to having the dollars and cents stake in foreign trade that this Nation has. The foreign trade of the United States is an integral part of the economic life of the Nation.

Lying in the

As it is with the Nation, so it is with Cedar Rapids, Iowa. heart of what was once the Nation's isolationist belt, Cedar Rapids is vitally aware of the increasing importance of foreign trade to its own economic welfare. Its workers and their families realize that foreign trade has helped to give them their high effective buying power of $5,334 annually, after taxes.

A recent national survey estimated that 7 percent of the total labor force in the Nation depended directly upon foreign trade for a livelihood. In Cedar Rapids 1 out of every 10 persons gainfully employed, or 10 percent of our labor force, either directly or indirectly earn their livelihood by foreign trade. It is generally believed that on a per capita tonnage basis, Cedar Rapids is the largest export city in the United States.

Cedar Rapids products are sold in most all countries of the world exclusive of the Iron Curtain ones. As the British Empire of old, the sun never sets on products manufactured or processed in Cedar Rapids. Export managers from Cedar Rapids industries periodically are in Africa, South America, Central America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the various islands on business.

Cedar Rapids is internationally known as one of the world's largest producers of highway and airport construction machinery. It has the largest cereal plant in the world, Quaker Oats Co., and one of the largest electronic companies, Collins Radio Co.

Daily the assembly-line men in Cedar Rapids see their machines-rock crushers, power cranes, radio transmitters-with tickets on them indicating they are destined to Ceylon, Pakistan, Venezuela, Cuba, and the Belgian Congo.

Even the farmers in the Cedar Rapids area are realizing that a share of their present income is derived from the exportation of such local agricultural products as corn, cornmeal, popcorn, oat flour, cereals, prepared feeds, meat products, and lard from Cedar Rapids.