John Kilopascal wrote in USMA 12285 >The issue may never come up. In years past, when negotiating trade pacts >with the EU and Japan, these countries always bought up the metric issue as >a stumbling block to smooth trade. > >Unless the Latin American (LA) countries somehow mention that their >economies are heavily metric and any attempt by the US to subvert this fact >by trying to force LA to accept non-metric standards would be resisted, >might either provoke an angry response from the US or force the Us into some >type of action to make the US more metric friendly. > >If LA can reason with the US that inclusion of FFU will be a cost burden to >the LA economy and the US would benefit by converting, then maybe we have a >chance. But, I'm not getting my hope up. The North Amerixcan Free Trade Agreement, which was between two metric countries and the USA, may indicate how the issue will be handled. In 800 pages the agreement mentioned a few metric units and one or two inch-pound units but there was no suggestion that Canada and Mexico should switch to the use of inch-pound, or that the USA should go metric. Joseph B. Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
