New Anti-boycott Legislation Introduced in Senate; Carter Administration Backing Expected

New legislation that would make it illegal for American companies to participate in any manner in the Arab boycott of Israel was introduced in the Senate yesterday by Sens. Harrison Williams Jr. (D.NJ) and William Proxmire (D. Wisc.). The bill, to be known as the Export Administration and Foreign Boycott Amendment Act of 1977, is designed to toughen the anti-boycott provisions of the Export Administration Act and remove the confusion that now surrounds their implementation.

Williams, chairman of the subcommittee on securities of the Senate’s Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, said the act would “provide an effective and responsible American position in the face of the serious legal; political, economic and moral questions raised by the Arab boycott.”

The Export Administration Act expired last year when a filibuster, believed initiated by the Ford Administration, prevented adoption of the necessary extension legislation. Williams noted that “as a result, the U.S. is now without the requisite authority to deal with the complex issues of national and international consequence arising under the jurisdiction of the act.”

KREPS INDICATES SUPPORT

The Williams-Proxmire bill will have the full support of the incoming Carter Administration, Mrs. Juanita Kreps, Secretary of Com-

Williams observed that a portion of his measure “deals with an issue of particular interest and special concern to this country and one of its closest allies–the Arab boycott of Israel and of American firms doing business in or with Israel.” He noted that such firms “and even Jewish Americans in the U.S. have become targets of Arab blacklisting, religious discrimination and economic reprisals” and that “discrimination and blackmail have been injected into U.S. national and international economic and political affairs.”

Williams noted further that American firms “in too many instances are collaborating with the boycotting countries” and that there is an upward trend in the number of transactions involving boycott requests and the number of companies reporting compliance. “We have allowed ourselves to become enforcers of the boycott of Israel,” he said. “Unconscionable religious discrimination which is integral to the Arab boycott is repugnant to our ideals as a nation and neither our citizens nor our government should tolerate such practices any longer,” Williams declared.

PREVENTS FOREIGN INFLUENCE

He said his proposed legislation “will help prevent foreign governments from using their economic influence to engage in and coerce others to engage in restrictive trade practices that violate fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution.”

Williams said the bill would accomplish these objectives: strengthen the Export Administration Act to make it illegal for American firms to engage in secondary or tertiary boycotts; specify for American businessmen the range of permissible and impermissible conduct under U.S. law to clarify the current confusion over the actual meaning of “compliance” with a foreign boycott; protect U.S. business from the pressure of foreign boycott requests; assure that American businessmen have freedom of choice in their commercial relationships anywhere in the world; require public accountability by the Commerce Department in its administration and enforcement of the act and require expanded public disclosure and reporting of boycott requests; conform to international law concepts of sovereignty.

Williams stressed that his bill “deals responsibly with extremely sensitive matters” and is designed not to disrupt “any of the initiatives toward a permanent and equitable peace in the Middle East.”