Foreign Trade Policy

Plan to Renew U.S. Trade Act for Five Years

Whether the United States shall continue to promote ready interchange of goods among the free world's trading nations, or whether it shall remold its foreign economic policy along protectionist lines, is one of the vital questions now confronting Congress and the country. The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, ten times renewed since it was put on the statute books in 1934, is scheduled to expire June 30, 1958. The Eisenhower Administration wants it extended for five years.

This year's debate will be marked by considerably more controversy than that attending past three-year or one-year renewals. House Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-Tex.) told reporters, after a Dec. 3 White House conference on legislative plans, that ...