NATION : U.S. Trade Policy Gets Mild Rebuke at Meeting of Economic Partners

The world’s leading industrial powers today issued a resounding call for freer world trade but stopped short of condemning the United States outright for its threat to retaliate against unfair traders.

Washington hotly denied it had undermined the international trade system with its tough new trade policy and managed to avoid an explicit rebuke from its partners in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Paris-based world trade and commerce group.

But an OECD communique issued at the end of the group’s annual meeting implicitly criticized the U.S. decision last week to cite Japan, India and Brazil as conducting unfair practices under the 1988 Trade Act. The citings carry the threat of sanctions if trade barriers are not removed.

“Ministers firmly reject the tendency toward unilateralism, bilateralism, sectoralism and managed trade which threatens the multilateral system,” the communique said.