GATT Ministers Scold U.S., but Some Fear Deficit's End
One after another, trade ministers stepped to the podium here this week and called on the United States to put its fiscal house in order.</br></br>But the paradox underlying the meeting here of the 95 nations that belong to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is that many countries fear that the Reagan administration and Congress actually will get together and make meaningful cuts in the U.S. budget deficit.</br></br>That would likely cause a contraction in the U.S. economy, which other countries expect would hurt sales of their exports to the United States.</br></br>While this would help ease the United States' stubborn trade deficit, which has soared to record heights for four straight years, it could plunge many countries whose growth depends on exports to the United States into economic recession or worse.</br></br>For while the budget deficit has brought instability and uncertainty to world financial markets and caused the U.S. dollar to plunge to record lows, it also has fed economic expansion in the United States, which has become the locomotive for world growth in this decade.