EEC and US in crisis talks

PRESIDENT NIXON is losing no time to press home the advantage gained for US capitalism as a result of the Washington Group of Ten currency deal.

The round of up-valuations against the dollar agreed at Washington has already given US industry an immense competitive advantage.

But the Americans are by no means satisfied. They now want to prise open the tariff barriers of Europe and Japan so that their products can flood in on the same terms as European-made goods.

Nixon's special trade envoy William Eberle arrived in Brussels yesterday to present the Common Market countries with a list of demands for sweeping trade concessions.

Eberle has already held one round of talks with Common Market negotiators who were so angry after hear•ing his demands that they broke off negotiations.

Maurice Schumann, the French Foreign Minister, said then he was not prepared to negotiate with a pistol at his head.

This time, Nixon's adviser has simply brought along bigger guns. He has made it clear that the dollar devaluation package will not be submitted to Congress unless the Common Market caves in, dismantles its agricultural price policy and allows much freer access for American exports.

•- Package Eberle said yesterday he hoped to have the package tied up for presentation to Congress when it reopens after the Christmas recess in mid-January is going calmly ahead with his blackmail operation and paying no attention when the EEC countries complain the US terms will ruin their economies.

Prof Ralf Dahrendorf, the Common Market commissioner, warned in Brussels yesterday that the EEC was n 'a difficult position' in the talks.

The EEC's trade deficit with the US is running at over $2,000m a year,. and Dahrendorf said the Common Market just could not afford any important concessions.

Asked about Market negotiators' present unyielding stance, he agreed yesterday that there was *a difference between the and the US. 'But that's what we're here to talk about,' he said.

SIMILAR treatment is being handed out to America's other rivals. At Hamilton, Bermuda, where Edward Heath is meeting Richard Nixon, there are clear signs that the US is taking tough line with Britain as well.

Delightful

Treasury Secretary John Connally held what he described as 'a delightful discussion' with Tory Chancellor Anthony Barber.

In the course of this tête-àthe Connally contemptuously rejected Barber's idea that further monetary talks should proceed through the now virtually defunct International Monetary Fund.

He insisted that what the US wanted was bilateral talks.

If Heath had lingering hopes that the so-called 'special relationship' with the US has any future, his talk with Nixon must have shattered them.

The US is driving ruthlessly ahead with its trade war plans and is not a whit concerned who gets hurt in the process.

The Washington agreement, described by Nixon as greatest monetary agreement in world history, cannot endure for long. America's definitely demititors cannoturden int supporting capital and goods.

The S African government has already devalued the Rand by 124 per cent to undercut the dollar devaluation. It cannot be long before other countries follow suit as they watch their surpluses and reserves drain back to the US.

The reality of the Washington agreement is an intensification of the struggle between capitalist nation states which must in turn drive the employers of all the capitalist countries to turn mercilessly on the working class at home.