Tariffs: The Bargain at Le Bocage

History's most ambitious effort to lower the barriers to international trade finally succeeded last week in Geneva. After four years of bargaining, a month of frenzied horse trading, and some last-minute flirtations with failure, Kennedy Round negotiators from some 50 non-Communist countries agreed to cut their tariffs by an average 35% by 1972.

It was the free world's sixth bout of tariff reductions since World War IIĀ—and it far surpassed earlier efforts. The 1962 Dillon Round achieved 8% reductions in customs duties on $5 billion a year of global trade. Last week's...

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