Trade deficit balloons to $26.7 billion
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's
trade deficit soared to a record $26.7 billion
last year, the government reported Monday
and a top administration official predicted a
deficit nearly as large this year.
Imports of costly foreign oil were a major
cause of the 1977 deficit, draining $42.1
billion from American banks and pocket
books, an increase of $10 billion from a year
earlier.
The huge trade deficit has been a chief
reason for the decline of the dollar on world
money markets in the past year. If the deficit
continues as predicted, further declines in
the dollar appear likely in 1978.
Both imports and exports set new highs
during 1977, although imports grew much
faster. The Commerce Department said
Imported oil primary cause
imports of all goods totalled $146.8 billion, a
22 percent increase, while exports totalled
$120.1 billion, a five percent advance from
1976.
The resulting deficit of $26.7 billion was
more than four times larger than the previ
ous record deficit of nearly $6.4 billion in
1972. The deficit a year ago was just under
$5.9 billion.
Pres. Carter's chief economic adviser,
Charles Schultze, told reporters that the de
ficit in 1978 will be in “the neighborhood” of
the 1977 deficit, although he forecast an
improving trend over the next few years.
He said the size of the deficit depends in
part on the demand for U.S. goods in other
nations. Demand has been weak in such
countries as Japan and Germany and the
administration has been appealing to these
nations to take steps to import more goods
from the United States.
For American workers, the trade deficit
translates into a substantial loss of jobs be
cause it means Americans are buying many
more foreign-made goods and products
than foreign consumers are buying
U.S.-made products.
Schultze acknowledged at a news con
ference the nation s trade will be one of the
things that will be closely watched by the
administration in months ahead and which
may have a bearing on the nation s overall
economic performance this year.
There was some slight improvement in
the trade figures in December. The Com
merce Department said exports totalled
$11.029 billion while imports were $13.059
billion, leaving a deficit for the month of
$2,029 billion, down from November's
$2,082 billion.
The agency said oil imports in December
declined to $3,219 billion from November’s
$3,529 billion.
Total oil imports during 1977 by quantity
were nearly 3.2 billion barrels, up sharply
from the 1976 total of just under 2.7 billion
barrels. But administration officials do not
expect any significant increase in oil im
ports in 1978.
eWorld at a glance-N
From Associated Press Reports
ERDA tried to bias nuke vote
WASHINGTON — A federal agency advocating nuclear
energy tried to influence the outcome of a California anti-nuclear
referendum but no laws were violated in the process, the General
Accounting Office (GAO) reported Monday.
The GAO report does not name any ERDA officials involved
in trying to defeat the California nuclear safeguards initiative. It
lost by a two to one margin on June 8, 1976.
GAO, however, said it concluded "high level agency officials
intended to present nuclear power in a favorable light avoiding an
objective discussion of its drawbacks.. .GAO believes that the
agency, by advocating the absolute need for nuclear power and
failing to mention its disadvantages or problems, attempted to
influence Californians to vote against the referendum."
Canal treaty sent to Senate
WASHINGTON — The Senate Foreign Relations committee
sent the controversial Panama Canal treaty to the Senate floor
Monday after a last-minute revision aimed at avoiding the need
for Panamanian voters to approve the pact a second time.
Sen. Clifford Case, R-N.J., said the change was “a face
saving device for the Panamanian negotiators.” But, he added,
“I'm perfectly willing to save as many faces as necessary."
Mideast military talks set
JERUSALEM — Egyptian-lsraeli military negotiations on the
future of the occupied Sinai peninsula will resume Tuesday night
in Cairo, spokesmen in Jerusalem and Cairo announced Mon
day.
Word of the resumption came as U S. mediator Alfred Ather
ton hand-carried an Israeli proposal for a declaration on overall
peace principles to Cairo after a final meeting Monday morning
with Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan in Jerusalem.
Official warns of power loss
WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary James Schlesinger
warns that industrial users face a curtailment of power unless
weather conditions improve or the coal strike ends.
Schlesinger said Sunday the government is studying ways of
alleviating the situation, but he would not predict use of the
Taft-Hartley Act to end the 55-day strike.
The 1947 act allows the president to seek a court injunction
stopping strikes for an 80-day cooling off period while an impartial
fact-finding commission studies the dispute.
Soviet flu toll 30 percent
WASHINGTON — The death rate in the Soviet Union for
children under 14 with the Russian flu has exceeded 30 percent,
an American health team reported today.
The death rate there for children 15 and older was 8.5 per
cent, Dr. Michale Gregg of the Center for Disease Control told a
government conference on the Russian flu. For the entire Rus
sian population, the death rate was 12.4 percent for people with
the flu.
, i1'3
Happy Hour 8-9 pm
Paul Masson wines
Miller on tap
1
j
•i
|;
< ' <P
Open 9 am -11 pm daily
11 am - 4 pm Sat.
Closed Sunday
1Z25 Alder
Carter to caution Soviets
on launching nuke satellites
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pres.
Carter promised Monday to ask
the Soviet Union not to send up
any more atomic satellites like the
one that fell on Canada and said
“we would be glad to forego the
deployment of any such satellites
altogether.”
Calling for more rigid precau
tions among all nations, the presi
Guerrillas
pledge end
to white rule
RABAT, Malta (AP) — Black
guerrilla leaders, pledging to push
their war to end white rule in
Rhodesia, left little room for com
promise as they sat down today
with American and British envoys
to discuss a plan to transfer power
to the black majority.
Andrew Young, the U.S. Am
bassador to the United Nations,
and British Foreign Secretary
David Owen met Joshua Nkomo
and Robert Mugabe amid indica
tions the black leaders will reject
the latest British-American plan
for a peaceful political settlement.
Nkomo and Mugabe, joint lead
ers of the Patriotic Front battling
the white-minority Rhodesian
government, went into the talks
after serving public notice their
only aim is to secure a total trans
fer of power from Prime Minister
Ian Smith’s regime.
“If the British do not throw Mr
Smith out we will do it," Nkomo
told reporters on the eve of the
British-convened conference on
this Mediterranean island. “The
war will go on" until the Patriotic
Front achieves full power, he said.
dent said the United States and
the Soviet Union should try to de
velop a "sure-fire" safety system
to keep such nuclear power satel
lites from falling to earth or into the
atmosphere.
"If we cannot evolve those fail
safe methods,” Carter said, "then
I think there ought to be a total
prohibition against earthorbiting
satellites. I would favor at this
moment an agreement with the
Soviets to prohibit earth orbiting
satellites with atomic or radiation
material in them.”
Carter spoke at a nationally
televised news conference, his
second this year. He pledged to
pursue the "failsafe” system and
the atomic-satellite ban with the
Soviet Union. Carter said the
Soviets had told him their satellite
was designed to be destroyed dur
ing its fall and that it would not
explode.
Canadian officials said earlier in
the day that two American wildlife
scientists had found radioactive
wreckage from the satellite, which
Jtoooooooooaoooooot
plunged to earth Jan. 24 cutting a
nine to 10-foot crater into ice on
the Thelon River in the Northwest
Territories. The wreckage was
described as structural tubing and
a smashed metal canister.
At his wide-ranging news con
ference, Carter also said:
•Rejection of any phase of his
tax, jobs and inflation-fighting
programs could aggravate the
nation’s economic problems. He
said success depends on “a very
careful balance" between conflict
ing priorities.
If necessary, the president said,
he would try to exert influence on
Congress and through the Ameri
can people to keep his programs
intact.
•He has no intention at this time
to intercede in the nation's coal
strike by invoking the Taft-Hartley
Act. which would require miners to
return to work for an 80-day cool
ing off period. Nonetheless, he
conceded that prospects for an
end to the strike do not look good.
■oocoooooooooooootx^
A
Copies
Rapid Printing
rlnnf • Advertising ^ —
Cooperatiy«Pri“»??8
i485-4899
Monday-F^day
VOUUS67p'->"*U'da'
rJ.^- 5fi”