Western European countries. Recent developments in both the European Economic Community and the European Free Trade Association were reviewed. Both delegations reaffirmed the support of their governments for European efforts to reduce trade barriers and expressed hope that the development of the regional groupings would conform with the requirements and objectives of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and would avoid discrimination against the exports of the United States and Canada.

9. The Committee discussed the progress to date of the GATT tariff negotiations with the European Economic Community at Geneva.s Noting the interest of both countries in the expansion of world trade, the Committee stressed the need for an early settlement which would maintain for both countries undiminished access to the EEC market in all sectors of trade, including agriculture, and the opportunity to share in its growth. In addition, the Committee looked forward to the second phase of the current tariff conference when there will be negotiations for reciprocal exchanges of tariff concessions among the participating countries with a view to providing further opportunities for trade expansion."

10. The Committee expressed satisfaction with the progress made by various countries in the past year in removing discriminatory restrictions against dollar goods and expressed the hope that forthcoming discussions under the GATT with certain countries still retaining restrictions would result in elimination of discrimination and reduction of the remaining quantitative import restrictions affecting United States and Canadian products. The Committee noted that substantial discrimination remains in the field of agricultural products and urged that countries concerned liberalize trade in these products.

11. The United States delegation outlined the new Food for Peace Program,10 emphasizing the conviction of the United States that agricultural abundance essentially is not a problem but an asset which may be effectively employed to improve nutrition and enhance economic development throughout the world. The United States delegation pointed out that it would continue to be the United States polley to avoid disrupting agricultural markets to the disadvantage of other countries' commercial exports of agricultural products. The Canadian delegation supported the humanitarian objective of the Food for Peace Program and noted that this development would be compatible with Canadian proposals to establish a World Food Bank on a multilateral basis." The Committee agreed that there should be a continuation of the close consultation between the two governments on concessional exports of agricultural commodities through

7

See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1960, pp. 335-359, and post, docs. 180–197.

"These negotiations commenced Sept. 1, 1960; see the Department of State Bulletin, Sept. 19, 1960, pp. 453-456.

9

The second phase commenced May 29, 1961; see ibid., June 12, 1961, pp. 938-939.

existing bilateral arrangements and in the Wheat Utilization Committee.12

12. In its comprehensive review the Committee discussed other important matters directly affecting trade and economic relations between the two countries. It was reaffirmed that where problems existed direct exchanges of views at the Cabinet level should contribute substantially to their solution.

160. THE STATE OF CANADIAN-UNITED STATES RELATIONS: Address by the President of the United States (Kennedy) Before the Canadian Parliament, May 17, 1961 (Excerpts) 13

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.

What unites us is far greater than what divides us. The issues and irritants that inevitably affect all neighbors are small indeed in comparison with the issues that we face together, above all, the somber threat now posed to the whole neighborhood of this continent-in fact, to the whole community of nations. But our alliance is born not of fear but of hope. It is an alliance that advances what we are for, as well as opposes what we are against.

And so it is that when we speak of our common attitudes and relationships, Canada and the United States speak in 1961 in terms of unity. We do not seek the unanimity that comes to those who water down all issues to the lowest common denominator, or to those who conceal their differences behind fixed smiles, or to those who measure unity by standards of popularity and affection, instead of trust and respect.

We are allies. This is a partnership, not an empire. We are bound to have differences and disappointments; and we are equally bound to bring them out into the open, to settle them where they can be settled, and to respect each other's views when they cannot be settled.

Thus ours is the unity of equal and independent nations, cotenants of the same continent, heirs of the same legacy, and fully sovereign associates in the same historic endeavor: to preserve freedom for ourselves and all who wish it. To that endeavor we must bring great material and human resources, the result of separate cultures and independent economies. And above all, that endeavor requires a free and full exchange of new and different ideas on all issues and all undertakings.

For it is clear that no free nation can stand alone to meet the threat of those who make themselves our adversaries, that no free nation can

12 See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1959, pp. 1489-1492. 13 White House press release (Ottawa, Canada) dated May 17, 1961 (text as printed in the Department of State Bulletin, June 5, 1961, pp. 839-843). President and Mrs. Kennedy made an official visit to Canada May 16-18, 1961.

retain any illusions about the nature of the threat, and that no free nation can remain indifferent to the steady erosion of freedom around the globe.

It is equally clear that no Western nation on its own can help those less developed lands to fulfill their hopes for steady progress.

And, finally, it is clear that in an age where new forces are asserting their strength around the globe-when the political shape of the hemispheres are changing rapidly-nothing is more vital than the unity of the United States and Canada.

And so my friends of Canada, whatever problems may exist or arise between us, I can assure you that my associates and I will be ever ready to discuss them with you and to take whatever steps we can to remove them. And whatever those problems may be, I can also assure you that they shrink in comparison with the great and awesome tasks that await us both as free and peace-loving nations.

So let us fix our attention not on those matters that vex us as neighbors but on the issues that face us as leaders. . .

First, if you will, consider our mutual hopes for this hemisphere. Stretching virtually from pole to pole the nations of the Western Hemisphere are bound together by the laws of economics as well as geography, by a common dedication to freedom as well as a common history of fighting for it. To make this entire area more secure against aggression of all kinds, to defend it against the encroachment of international communism in this hemisphere, and to see our sister states fulfill their hopes and needs for economic and social reform and development are surely all challenges confronting your nation, and deserving of your talents and resources, as well as ours.

To be sure, it would mean an added responsibility; but yours is not a nation that shrinks from responsibility. The hemisphere is a family into which we were born, and we cannot turn our backs on it in time of trouble. Nor can we stand aside from its great adventure of development. I believe that all of the free members of the Organization of American States would be heartened and strengthened by any increase in your hemispheric role. Your skills, your resources, your judicious perception at the council table-even when it differs from our own view are all needed throughout the inter-American community. Your country and mine are partners in North American affairs. Can we not now become partners in inter-American affairs? Secondly, let us consider our mutual hopes for the North Atlantic Community.

14

Third, let us turn to the less developed nations in the southern half of the globe-those whose struggle to escape the bonds of mass misery appeals to our hearts as well as to our hopes. Both your nation and mine have recognized our responsibilities to these new nations. Our people have given generously, if not always effectively. We could not do less. And now we must do more.

14 For this part of President Kennedy's address, see post, doc. 173.

For our historic task in this embattled age is not merely to defend freedom. It is to extend its writ and strengthen its covenant-to peoples of different cultures and creeds and colors, whose policy or economic system may differ from ours but whose desire to be free is no less fervent than our own. Through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 15 and the Development Assistance Group,16 we can pool our vast resources and skills and make available the kind of long-term capital, planning, and know-how without which these nations will never achieve independent and viable economies, and without which our efforts will be tragically wasted. I propose further that the OECD establish a development center, where citizens and officials and students and professional men of the Atlantic area and the less developed world can meet to study in common the problems of economic development.

If we in the Atlantic Community can more closely coordinate our own economic policies and certainly the OECD provides the framework if we but use it, and I hope that you will join as we are seeking to join to use it-then surely our potential economic resources are adequate to meet our responsibility. Consider, for example, the unsurpassed productivity of our farms. Less than 8 percent of the American working force is on our farms; less than 11 percent of the Canadian working force is on yours-fewer men on fewer acres than any nation on earth. But free men on free acres can produce here in North America all the food that a hungry world could use, while all the collective farms and forced labor of the Communist system produce one shortage after another. This is a day-to-day miracle of our free societies, easy to forget at a time when our minds are caught up in the glamor of beginning the exploration of space.

As the new nations emerge into independence, they face a choice: Shall they develop by the method of consent or by turning their freedom over to the system of totalitarian control. In making that decision they should look long and hard at the tragedy now being played out in the villages of Communist China.

If we can work closely together to make our food surpluses a blessing instead of a curse, no man, woman, or child need go hungry. And if each of the more fortunate nations can bear its fair share of the effort to help the less fortunate-not merely those with whom we have traditional ties but all who are willing and able to achieve meaningful growth and dignity-then this decade will surely be a turning point in the history of the human family.

Finally, let me say just a few words about the world in which we live. We should not misjudge the force of the challenge that we face—a force that is powerful as well as insidious, which inspires dedication as well as fear, that uses means we cannot adopt to achieve ends we cannot permit.

Nor can we mistake the nature of the struggle. It is not for concessions or territory. It is not simply between different systems. It is the age-old battle for the survival of liberty itself. And our great

15 See post, doc. 176.

16 See post, docs. 169 and 174.

advantage-and we must never forget it-is that the irresistible tide that began 500 years before the birth of Christ in ancient Greece is for freedom and against tyranny. And that is the wave of the future, and the iron hand of totalitarianism can ultimately neither seize it nor turn it back...

So we in the free world are not without hope. We are not without friends. And we are not without resources to defend ourselves and those who are associated with us. Believing in the peaceful settlement of disputes in the defense of human rights, we are working throughout the United Nations, and through regional and other associations, to lessen the risks, the tensions, and the means and opportunity for aggression that have been mounting so rapidly throughout the world. In these councils of peace in the U.N. Emergency Force in the Middle East, in the Congo, in the International Control Commission in southeast Asia, in the Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament-Canada has played a leading and important and constructive role.

If we can contain the powerful struggle of ideologies and reduce it to manageable proportions, we can proceed with the transcendent task of disciplining the nuclear weapons which shadow our lives and of finding a widened range of common enterprises between ourselves and those who live under Communist rule. For, in the end, we live on one planet and we are part of one human family; and whatever the struggles that confront us, we must lose no chance to move forward toward a world of law and a world of disarmament.

At the conference table and in the minds of men, the free world's cause is strengthened because it is just. But it is strengthened even more by the dedicated efforts of free men and free nations. As the great parliamentarian Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." And that in essence is why I am here today. This trip is more than a consultation, more than a good-will visit. It is an act of faith-faith in your country, in your leaders, faith in the capacity of two great neighbors to meet their common problems, and faith in the cause of freedom, in which we are so intimately associated.

161. CANADIAN-UNITED STATES DISCUSSIONS COVERING “BROAD INTERNATIONAL ISSUES AS WELL AS SPECIFIC CANADIAN-UNITED STATES QUESTIONS": Joint Communiqué Issued at Ottawa by the President of the United States (Kennedy) and the Prime Minister of Canada (Diefenbaker), May 18, 1961 17

President Kennedy and Prime Minister Diefenbaker stated that they had had a welcome opportunity of renewing the personal contact they established during the Prime Minister's visit to Washington in February 18 and of examining together questions of concern to both

"White House press release (Ottawa, Canada) dated May 18, 1961 (text as printed in the Department of State Bulletin, June 5, 1961, p. 843).