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- Parte de Records of the Office of the Chief of Staff (Clinton Administration), Harold Ickes, Jr.'s Files
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OCR Page 1 of 110GATT
PROJECT FOR THE
REPUBLICAN FUTURE
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Willine KRISTOL, Customs
VIRGINIA
To Harold Jakes
MICHALL S. Jurce
David Days
TIKMAS L. RIKERS
Mikedux
October 5, 1994
MEMORANDUM TO:
REPUBLICAN LEADERS
FYI
FROM:
WILLIAM KRISTOL
CarenWellop
SUBJECT:
Pass GATT Now
The current Congress now seems perilously close to concluding its business without
ratifying the most significant free trade pact in post-war history, the Uruguay Round
negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Most everything
this Democratic Congress has attempted to pass this year deserved delay or death.
GATT doesn't. Its implementing legislation should be approved immediately. And
Republican votes should lead the way.
GATT is not I Democratic-spensored "initiative" that principled Republican believers
in limited government are duty-bound to oppose. Quite the opposite: it is 0 four-
decades-long International trade liberalization process, one that represents the
essence of conservative economic thinking and post-war American foreign policy.
Dalaying GATT plays into the hands of free trade's enemies. Any chance that this
treaty's Implementing legislation could be improved seems to us far outweighed by
the risk that further delay might imperil the treaty itself. Pandering to protectionism -
and to Ross Perot - is bad for the Republican Party and for the United States.
Republicans have for two years correctly opposed, even "obstructed," Democratic
legislation that would be bad for the country. But opposing (even doleying) logiole.
tion that is good for the country will give principled obstructionism a bad name. And
it may well backfire politically. The Democratic talking point that Republicans now
routinely oppose "everything" for the besest of political reasons has so far failed to
convince American voters, who are poised to return the most Republican Congress in
decades. That talking point has failed because it hasn't been true. The legislation
we've "blocked" has been bad legislation. GATT isn't. And we should pass it now.
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