It's pretty well established that trade agreements today are controversial. But how does the situation compare to the past? I was recently digging around the NY Times archives for something non-trade related, and I thought I'd see what was being said about the original GATT negotiations. Here's a sampling of a few articles. My initial impression is that things today are not radically different from what was going on back then.
What was being negotiated:
Editorial from October 31, 1947
Trade agreements have been negotiated which affect in varying degrees 45,000 separate items – items which represent two-thirds of the entire trade of the participating nations. This second phase of the Geneva task falls, itself, into two distinct parts. First, there is the basic Geneva trade agreement, known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. This consists of a series of general provisions calculated to outlaw various forms of trade discrimination other than tariffs. Then there are the 45,000 specific tariff concessions, the product of 123 separate bilateral agreements.
Article from October 31, 1947
Chairman Suetens’ address reviewed the long history of the meeting and contrasted its success with the failures of former tariff conferences.
“The signing of the final act today,” he said, “marks the completion of the most comprehensive, the most significant and the most far-reaching negotiations ever undertaken in the history of world trade.”
Trade with China may be controversial:
Article from September 25, 1947
The Geneva Trade Conference unanimously approved today the text of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
…
United States delegation circles are unreservedly enthusiastic about the Benelux and Cuba accords. That with China, a country with an essentially revenue tariff is regarded as valuable for the future and for the political importance of strengthening the United States links with China. Some of the concessions that the United States has granted China are going to be hot to handle when pressure groups get working the United States.
A positive review of the events from a free trade supporter:
Letter to the Editor from November 28, 1947
The general agreement on tariffs and trade reached at Geneva deserves a round of applause from every consumer and student of economics.
The agreement should represent within two or three years a deterrent to inflation, a healthy stimulus to American business, and the opening of greater world markets.
J.L. Gibson
Schenectady, N.Y., Nov. 19, 1947
Treatment of developing countries causes controversy:
Article from December 24, 1947
Clair Wilcox, acting chairman of the United States delegation to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment, warned today that the United States might have to abandon the International Trade Organization project and adopt retaliatory measures if economically undeveloped countries insisted on freedom to use import quotas and other quantitative restrictions on world trade.
Telling the conference that the United States could not agree to proposals that amount to a “prescription for economic anarchy,” he said:
“If quantitative restrictions are to be fastened on the commerce of the world without let or hindrance, the restrictionism of the Fifties and Sixties will make the restrictionism of the Thirties look like absolute free trade. If this is to be the outcome of our negotiations here I say that all our hopes for expanding trade, raising the standard of living promoting economic development and achieving world peace are doomed to failure.”
…
Mr. Wilcox denied the charges of some advocates of quantitative restrictions that big countries were trying to prevent the industrialization of underdeveloped countries and to protect young industries against unfair competition from highly developed countries. He said there had never been any dispute about the right of undeveloped opened countries to progress and that the ITO Charter specifically provided for certain uses of quantitative restrictions with prior ITO approval in case where it could be justified.
The negative impact on domestic industry:
Article from November 19, 1947
U.S. TARIFF CUTS ARE CALLED BLOW TO INDUSTRY HERE
Concessions in Geneva Pact Threaten Labor and Farms Also, Trade League Asserts
Tariff concessions in the Geneva trade pacts published yesterday are a “blow” to those segments of United States industry, agriculture and labor that depend upon import duties to compete with products from countries with lower wage standards, the American Tariff League asserted yesterday.
Other reports from various business quarters indicated favorable reception of both the concessions made and obtained by this country. Many groups still were analyzing the specific changes in duties contained in Schedule XX of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which contains the concessions by the United States. Metal products manufacturers, with few exceptions, saw long-term stabilization in durable goods as a result of the new schedules.
Richard H. Anthony, secretary of the American Tariff League, asserted that, “with dutiable items accounting for only 40 per cent of total imports and already bearing the lowest duties in at least a decade, the new and drastic tariff cuts cast doubt on whether the United States negotiators were mindful of President Truman’s promise that there was no intention to endanger or trade out segments of American industry, agriculture and labor.”
…
“By agreeing to a multilateral form of ‘escape clause’ machinery,” Mr. Anthony commented, “instead of the bilateral form heretofore employed the United States negotiators have made it all the more unlikely that United States groups injured by the workings of the new agreements will be able to get redress.
…
Makers of sporting firearms here were among the first with adverse reactions to the new rates. They asserted that while Belgian metal-working plants could be making vitally needed industrial products for Europe, some had turned to fabricating automatic American type shotguns, patterned after American design, and would be able to undersell domestic producers here.
Protection for certain industries and rules for foreign investment
Article from October 4, 1947
Turning to amended provisions of the charter Dr. Wilcox said the American delegation was successful in obtaining most of the amendments suggested by criticism of the original draft in the United States. He singled out two amendments as outstanding. These were: New provisions protecting the motion picture industry, and secondly, expansion of provisions for the protection of private foreign investment.
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On the score of protection of foreign investments, he explained, ITO will develop an international investment code for ratification, containing certain general commitments as to treatment of foreign investments. He said this enables us “to get our foot in the door on protection of foreign investments which was scarcely recognized in the early draft of the charter."
