Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report on the International Coffee Agreement.

To the Congress of the United States:

In accordance with the International Coffee Agreement Act, as extended and amended, I transmit herewith my annual report on the operations of the International Coffee Agreement in 1973.

The overproduction and surpluses in coffee which prevailed when the 1962 and 1968 coffee agreements were negotiated no longer existed when the 1968 agreement expired on September 30, 1973. In fact, the agreement's price-quota provisions had lapsed nine months earlier and it was clear that producers and consumers would be unable to reach agreement on similar provisions in a new coffee agreement. The 1968 agreement, therefore, was extended for two years effective October 1, 1973, but without its operative economic clauses.

A decade of international cooperation on coffee as represented by the 1962 and 1968 agreements should not be ignored. The prevailing atmosphere has not been conducive to agreement on the terms of any new coffee agreement containing operative economic provisions. However, it has been felt desirable to keep together the experienced secretariat staff of the International Coffee Organization to serve as a competent authority for the collection and dissemination of coffee statistics and other information on world production, trade and consumption while maintaining a framework in which consultations on coffee and negotiations for a new agreement could take place.

In the absence of operative economic provisions in the extended agreement and with a view to effecting some control over prices, a number of the producing nations have been attempting to concert their efforts to support coffee prices. We have repeatedly emphasized, during the negotiations for the modified extension of the 1968 International Coffee Agreement and on other occasions, our strong view that such unilateral producer actions are incompatible with the concept of international producer-consumer cooperation on coffee problems.

RICHARD NIXON

The White House,

July 10, 1974.