Early this year the US Administration made reference to "a marked improvement in the relations between the EC and the USA over the period of the last three years" - an astonishing statement in the light of the mounting non-tariff obstacles to trade between the EC and the USA.

Over the past three decades the non-tariff barriers to trade have grown in importance inversely to the import duties which have been lowered under GATT auspices. In the current GATT negotiations - the Tokyo round in which the contracting parties have been at work since the autumn of 1973 to...