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whenever so directed by resolution of either the Senate Committee on Finance or the House Committee on Ways and Means. In arriving at its findings and conclusions the Commission is required, without excluding other factors, to consider the following factors expressly set forth in section 7 (b): A downward trend of production, employment, prices, profits, or wages in the domestic industry concerned, or a decline in sales, an increase in imports, either actual or relative to domestic production, a higher or growing inventory, or a decline in the proportion of the domestic market supplied by domestic producers.

Should the Commission find, as a result of its investigation and hearings, the existence or the threat of serious injury as a result of increased imports, it must recommend to the President, to the extent and for the time necessary to prevent or remedy such injury, the withdrawal or modification of the concession, or the suspension of the concession in whole or in part, or the establishment of an import quota. Thereupon, the Commission must immediately make public its findings and recommendations to the President, including any dissenting or separate findings and recommendations, and publish a summary thereof in the Federal Register. When, in the Commission's judgment, there is no sufficient reason to recommend to the President that a trade-agreement concession be modified or withdrawn, the Commission must make and publish a report stating its findings and conclusions.

Executive Order 10401, which is discussed fully in a later section 1/ of this chapter, directs the Commission to review developments

with respect to products on which the United States has modified or

1/ See the section of this chapter on the review of escape-clause actions under Executive Order 10401.

withdrawn trade-agreement concessions under the escape-clause procedure, and to make periodic reports to the President concerning such develop

ments.

Applications for Investigations

On July 1, 1956, a total of 7 escape-clause investigations were pending before the Tariff Commission. During the ensuing 12 months, the Commission received 8 additional applications and instituted investigations in response to each of them. 1 of a total of 15 1/ escape-clause investigations that were pending before the Commission at one time or another during the period covered by this report, the Commission at the close of the period had completed 7 investiga

tions, 2/ had discontinued and dismissed 1 investigation at the appli

cant's request, and had terminated 1 investigation without formal

findings. The remaining 6 investigations were still in process on June 30, 1957.

The nature and status of the individual escape-clause investiga

tions that were pending before the Commission at one time or another during the period July 1, 1956, to June 30, 1957, are shown in the following compilation. 3/

Between April 20, 1948, when it received the first application for an escape-clause investigation, and June 30, 1957, the Commission received a total of 82 applications.

2 See the section of this chapter on investigations completed or dismissed.

3/ This compilation shows the status of only those escape-clause investigations that were pending before the Commission at one time or another during the period covered by this report. Lists of applications received before the period covered by this report, and their status on various dates, are given in earlier reports on the operation of the trade agreements program. For a resume of the status of all escape-clause applications filed with the Commission between April 20, 1948, and February 4, 1957, see U. S. Tariff Commission, Investigations Under the "Escape Clause" of Trade Agreements: Outcome or Current Status of Applications Filed With the United States Tariff Commission for Investigations Under the "Escape Clause" of Trade Agreements, as of February 4, 1957, 7th ed., 1957 (processed).

Continued Application of Schedules. Under these procedures, a contracting party that proposes to modify a concession negotiates with the country of initial negotiation (and any other interested countries) regarding compensation. In these negotiations the country that proposes the modification may grant new concessions to the interested countries, or the interested countries may withdraw or adjust upward concessions of a value substantially equal to the one modified.

On February 4, 1957, the Committee for Reciprocity Information issued notice that it intended to hold a public hearing on United States participation in the proposed tariff renegotiations with Canada. In its notice the CRI invited interested persons to submit their views with respect to the anticipated effect on United States trade of the modification of the Canadian concession on potatoes, or with respect to products on which the United States might request new or further tariff concessions from Canada as compensation. It also invited views with respect to the possible upward modification, or withdrawal, of tariff concessions in the United States schedule of the General Agreement, including the concessions that the United States granted to Canada on potatoes in that agreement. Because no reductions in United States rates of duty were involved in the renegotiations, the Tariff Commission did not conduct a peril-point investigation. CRI held its public hearing on March 6, 1957.

As a result of the renegotiations, which took place in Washington during March and April 1957, Canada modified its General Agreement concession on potatoes to provide for a year-round duty of 37-1/2 cents per 100 pounds on all imported potatoes except new potatoes,

which will continue to be accorded duty-free entry during the period January 1 to June 14, inclusive. The modified concession replaced one that provided for duty-free entry of all potatoes except those imported during the period June 15 to July 31, inclusive, when the rate of duty was 37-1/2 cents per 100 pounds.

In the renegotiations, the United States modified its General Agreement concession on potatoes by reducing the tariff quota on seed potatoes from 2.5 million bushels to 1.9 million bushels, and by reducing the tariff quota on table-stock potatoes from 1 million bushels to 600,000 bushels. Under the modified concession, the mostfavored-nation rate of duty remains at 37-1/2 cents per 100 pounds for imports of seed potatoes within the new tariff quota of 1.9 million bushels, and for imports of table-stock potatoes within the new tariff quota of 600,000 bushels. The United States did not change the "escalator" clause in its original concession, which provides that in any year the tariff quota on table-stock potatoes will be increased by the amount that estimated United States production of such potatoes is less than 350 million bushels.

ACTIONS RELATING TO TRADE-AGREEMENT CONCESSIONS

Entry Into Force of Trade-Agreement Concessions

On June 29, 1957, the United States placed in effect the first stage of the tariff concessions on 5 types of cigar tobacco that it granted to Cuba in the limited trade-agreement negotiations conducted with that country under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

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For a discussion of the concessions that the United States granted in these negotiations, see the section of this chapter on trade-agreement negotiations with Cuba.

On June 29, 1957, the United States placed in effect the first stage of the tariff concessions that it granted to the United Kingdom and Belgium in the limited trade-agreement negotiations with those countries under the General Agreement during the first half of 1957. The concessions, which were to compensate the United Kingdom and Belgium for the increase in 1956 by the United States of its rate of duty on certain linen toweling, were on certain textile machinery, tracing cloth, certain waterproof cloth, certain cotton rugs, certain 1/ artists' canvas, and books by American authors.

2/

On June 30, 1957, the United States placed in effect the second stage of the tariff concessions that it granted in the 1956 multi.lateral tariff negotiations under the General Agreement at Geneva. The United States granted these concessions in negotiations with the following 21 contracting parties to the General Agreement: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Cuba, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Finland, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Haiti, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

On June 30, 1957, the end of the period covered by this report, 1 country with which the United States concluded negotiations for tariff concessions under the General Agreement at Torquay--Korea-had not yet signed the Torquay Protocol. The United States, therefore, had not placed in effect the concessions that it initially negotiated with that country.

1/ For a discussion of the concessions that the United States granted in these negotiations, see the section of this chapter on trade-agreement negotiations with the United Kingdom and Belgium.

2 For a discussion of the concessions that the United States granted

in these negotiations, see Operation of the Trade Agreements Program (ninth report), ch. 3.

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