UNITED STATES VERSUS THE COMMON MARKET BITTER TRADE WAR HOTS UP

American and European trade experts has failed to reach any agreement on the reform of the world money and payments system.

Their report, to be published next week by the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OECD), has already been rejected in advance by the US members, led by William Eberle, President Nixon's main adviser on trade matters.

In a minority statement the Americans make explicit their total objection to the report's main line: • The US refuses to discuss changes in world money arrangements outside of proposals to drastically reduce European tariff levels to the advantage of American exports.

Eberle also rejects the proposition that it is impossible to liberalize agricultural trade, except in the very long run. The Americans pressed for fundamental changes in the EEC's farm support policy, the corner-stone of the Common Market.

The US also rejects one of the report's main findings that the chief responsibility for changes in present monetary arrangements lies with the deficit countries. of bitter argument, a committee of a committee top-level Here is the clearest possible indication of the grave nature of the crisis of the capitalist system. Nixon's August 15, 1971, measures abandoning the gold backing for the dollar marked a fundamental watershed in the history of post-war capitalism. Since then the scene has been set for an even sharper struggle between European and American capitalism. The OECD report is an expression of this growing clash. .

For millions of workers throughout western Europe and America it is a conflict with one immediate implication: unemployment.

The sharp rise in hard core unemployment in Britain-reported in yesterday's national trend.

Despite frantic efforts by the Nixon administration in the run-up to the November presidential election, American unemployment still stands at over 6 per cent.

In France unemployment is also growing rapidly. In July the unemployment level stood at over 381,000, an increase of more than 10,000 on the previous month and more than 50,000 up on the same period last year.

And as the trade war intensifies and foreign markets are eliminated through drastic protective measures, so unemployment must continue to grow at an increasing pace.

This is the real economic background to the political struggle which every worker faces against the Tory government.

Even Harold Wilson has been forced to voice his concern at this prospect. Writing in the first issue of a new Fabian Society journal 'Third World', the Labour Party leader warns of a world unemployment crisis that could threaten world peace.

Needless to say the reformist Wilson has no solution to this crisis. But in his own way he expresses the growing fear in the labour and trade union bureaucracy at the implications of the trade war.

In the background stands the huge US trade deficit. Last week Nixon was forced to report the country was a staggering $500m in the red for last month alone after an equally large June deficit.

Following the record $3.3 billion first half-year deficit, it now seems certain that the yearly figure will top the $5 billion mark, over twice the figure recorded last year.

As recently as 1964, the US had a trade surplus of over $7 billion. Here is but another indication of the rapidity with which the crisis has developed.

At the OECD talks the Americans made clear that they will not yield an inch to European pleas for monetary reform until there is a fundamental turn round in US trade position.

But such a turn round means the crushing of all her leading rivals in western Europe and Japan.

It is in this situation, with the ruling class being forced to turn more and more openly to the extreme right, that the building of the revolutionary party becomes increasingly urgent., police 999 and note the registration number of vehicle used OFFICIAL Dir OR SITE IS NSTRIKERO Bulding workers, on strike for ten weeks London, sign up to claim hardship money. complained bitterly that union leaders had at the Laing's hotel site in Gloucester Road, Many of them are now penniless and yesterday done nothing to help them.