Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report on the Trade Agreements Program for 1968.

To the Congress of the United States:

With this message I am transmitting the Thirteenth Annual Report on the Trade Agreements Program, as required by the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The report covers the year 1968.

In 1968, free world trade increased by 11.6 percent; U.S. exports increased by 9.6 percent; and U.S. imports rose by 23.7 percent, largely due to the inflationary forces in our economy which stimulated imports and also hampered the competitiveness of our exports.

The Trade Bill of 1969, which I recently submitted to the Congress, will equip us to build on the past gains of the Trade Agreements Program and to move forward toward a new trade program for the 1970s.

It will give us the capability to continue to move toward freer world trade, defend our own trade interests, and provide constructive adjustment to ;changes in world trade patterns. The Commission on World Trade, which I am appointing, will examine the complex trade issues that will confront us in the 1970s, and will make recommendations for the U.S. policies needed to deal with them.

This Administration is committed to a freer exchange of goods among nations. We must continue to strive for further growth in mutually advantageous world trade and, in part through such trade, for the eventual dismantling of the barriers that have stood in the way of the freer interchange of people and ideas.

RICHARD NIXON

The White House

December 16, 1969