Reciprocal Trade Agreements

Reciprocal Trade Agreements

The most copious source of executive agreements has been legislation which provided authority for entering into reciprocal trade agreements with other nations. 1 Such agreements in the form of treaties providing for the reciprocal reduction of duties subject to implementation by Congress were frequently entered into,2 but beginning with the Tariff Act of 1890,3 Congress began to insert provisions authorizing the Executive to bargain over reciprocity with no necessity of subsequent legislative action. The authority was widened in successive acts.4 Then, in the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934,5 Congress authorized the President to enter into agreements with other nations for reductions of tariffs and other impediments to international trade and to put the reductions into effect through proclamation. 6

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References

This text about Reciprocal Trade Agreements is based on “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation”, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

Notes

[Footnote 1] Id. at 121-27; W. McClure, supra at 83-92, 173-89.

[Footnote 2] Id. at 8, 59-60.

[Footnote 3] § 3, 26 Stat. 567, 612.

[Footnote 4] Tariff Act of 1897, § 3, 30 Stat. 15, 203; Tariff Act of 1909, 36 Stat. 11, 82.

[Footnote 5] 48 Stat. 943, § 350(a), 19 U.S.C. §§ 1351-1354.

[Footnote 6] See the continued expansion of the authority. Trade Expansion Act of 1962, 76 Stat. 872, § 201, 19 U.S.C. § 1821; Trade Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 1982, as amended, 19 U.S.C. §§ 2111, 2115, 2131(b), 2435. Congress has, with respect to the authorization to the President to negotiate multilateral trade agreements under the auspices of GATT, constrained itself in considering implementing legislation, creating a “fasttrack” procedure under which legislation is brought up under a tight timetable and without the possibility of amendment. 19 U.S.C. §§ 2191-2194.