Ford Instructs Agencies to Act Against Arab Boycott Measures

President Ford has given “strong instructions.” to his subordinates to implement his “strong statement” about discrimination against American citizens by the Arab boycott “and those agencies are following his instructions.” Presidential press secretary Ron Nessen reported. “It is clear.” that the Department of Commerce is “investigating” the boycott practices and “intends” to take legal action against American companies that do not report boycott practices.

Nessen’s comments came last Friday in response to questions from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on whether the President is implementing his statement that Arab discrimination against American Jews was “repugnant.” The JTA reporter noted that heads of Congressional subcommittees probing the discrimination had declared that the President’s subordinates were not supporting new legislation that would counteract discrimination. Congressional ire has been leveled in recent hearings against officials of the departments of State, Treasury, Justice, Commerce and Defense.

Supporting his statements of governmental support of the President’s feelings against discrimination, Nessen referred to a letter from Secretary of Commerce Frederick B. Dent of March 6 to Sen. Jacob K.Javits (R.NY). The letter said that “the boycott requests reported to this department by American exporters…do not appear to constitute an attempt on the part of the boycotting countries to prevent routine exports of U.S. products to Israel or to deny trade opportunities to U.S. exporters on religious or ethnic grounds.”

LEGISLATION TO IMPOSE PENALTIES

Dent also said that with reference to the absence of boycott information from companies that “the fact that a shipping line or a bank does not report a boycott request does not mean that such request was not reported by the exporter.” The Department of Commerce in a report to the Senate Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations on March 18–almost two weeks after the Dent letter–indicated a decline in reports filed with the Department from 23,617 in 1972 to only 788 last year.

The forms issued by the Commerce Department for reporting boycott practices have been attacked by Congressional committee members for lacking penalties against those that do not file them. In addition, the committee members have said the forms virtually encourage companies to go along with Arab boycott demands. Legislation imposing penalties on American companies and individuals in complying with boycott regulations have been introduced to meet these deficiencies over the opposition of Administration officials.