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Excepted. Three days after fixing their internal farm prices last week, the Common Market settled a joint farm-tariff policy with which to confront the U.S. in Kennedy Round sessions at Geneva. At first, five of the members were fully prepared to negotiate cuts on all farm products. But then the French put forward reservations and the others, not to let France get something for nothing, added theirs. They ended up with a long list of excepted products such as tomatoes, potatoes, peas, frozen fish, which they say they will refuse to discuss at Geneva.
Exceptions or no exceptions, the Kennedy Round can now pick up again seriously in September. Chances are that a general tariff reduction, not the desired 50%, but maybe around 30%, will be achieved before the U.S. delegation's authority from Congress to make tariff cuts expires on July 1, 1967. A successful Kennedy Round will boost U.S. exports, but the Eurofarm agreement will have the opposite effect. European agriculture, expanding behind a common tariff, is expected to cut deeply into U.S. farm exports to the Common Market nations, currently worth $1.6 billion annually.