exporting country on domestically consumed goods." Senate Committee on Finance, Executive Branch GATT Studies, 93d Cong., 2d Sess., 17-18 (1974).

This intuitively appealing principle regarding double taxation had been widely accepted both in this country and abroad for many years prior to enactment of the 1897 statute. See, e. g., Act of July 4, 1789, § 3, 1 Stat. 26 (remission of import duties upon exportation of products); 4 Works and Correspondence of D. Ricardo 216-217 (pamphlets and papers first published in 1822); A. Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book Four, ch. IV (1776).

C

The Secretary's interpretation of the countervailing-duty statute is as permissible today as it was in 1898. The statute has been re-enacted five times by Congress without any modification of the relevant language, see n. 8, supra, and, whether or not Congress can be said to have "acquiesced" in the administrative practice, it certainly has not acted to change it. At the same time, the Secretary's position has been incorporated into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),1o which is followed by every major trading nation in the world; foreign tax systems as well as private expectations thus have been built on the assumption that countervailing duties would not be imposed on nonexcessive remissions of indirect taxes. In light of these substantial reliance interests, the longstanding administrative construction of the statute should "not be

13 Article VI (3) of the GATT, adopted in 1947, 61 Stat. A24, provides that "[n]o product. . . imported into the territory of any other contracting party shall be subject to . . . countervailing duty by reason of the exemption of such product from . . . taxes borne by the like product when destined for consumption in the country of origin or exportation, or by reason of the refund of such . . . taxes." The Government does not contend that the GATT provision would supersede § 303 in the event of conflict between the two. Brief for United States 19 n. 11.

disturbed except for cogent reasons." McLaren v. Fleischer, 256 U. S. 477, 481 (1921); see Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S., at 18.

Aside from the contention, discussed in Part III, infra, that the Department's construction is inconsistent with this Court's decisions, petitioner's sole argument is that the Department's position is premised on false economic assumptions that should be rejected by the courts. In particular, petitioner points to "modern" economic theory suggesting that remission of indirect taxes may create an incentive to export in some circumstances, and to recent criticism of the GATT rules as favoring producers in countries that rely more heavily on indirect than on direct taxes." But, even assuming that these arguments are at all relevant in view of the legislative history of the 1897 provision and the longstanding administrative construction of the statute, they do not demonstrate the unreasonableness of the Secretary's current position. Even "modern" economists do not agree on the ultimate economic effect of remitting indirect taxes, and-given the present state of economic knowledge-it may be difficult, if not impossible, to measure the precise effect in any particular case. See, e. g., Executive Branch GATT Studies, supra, at 13-14, 17; Marks & Malmgren, Negotiating Nontariff Distortions to Trade, 7 L. & Policy in Int'l Bus. 351 (1975). More fundamentally, as the Senate Committee with responsibility in this

14 See, e. g., Marks & Malmgren, Negotiating Nontariff Distortions to Trade, 7 L. & Policy in Int'l Bus. 327, 351-355 (1975); The United States Submission on Border Tax Adjustments to Working Party No. 4 of the Council on Border Tax Adjustments, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (1966), reprinted in App. 93-116; Paper Submitted by John R. Petty, Assn't Sec'y of the Treasury, Twenty-First Annual Conference of the Canadian Tax Foundation (1968), reprinted in App. 117-138. Both the Secretary and GATT apparently consider remissions of direct taxes (e. g., income taxes) to be countervailable export subsidies. See Brief for United States 18 n. 10, 37-38; GATT, Basic Instruments and Selected Documents 186-187 (Supp. 1961).

area recently stated, "the issues involved in applying the countervailing duty law are complex, and . . . internationally, there is [a] lack of any satisfactory agreement on what constitutes a fair, as opposed to an 'unfair,' subsidy." S. Rep. No. 93-1298, p. 183 (1974). In this situation, it is not the task of the judiciary to substitute its views as to fairness and economic effect for those of the Secretary.

III

Notwithstanding all of the foregoing considerations, this would be a very different case if, as petitioner contends, the Secretary's practice were contrary to this Court's decision in Downs v. United States, 187 U. S. 496 (1903).15 Upon close examination of the admittedly opaque opinion in that case, however, we do not believe that Downs is controlling on the question presented here.

The Russian sugar laws at issue in Downs were, as the Court noted, "very complicated." Id., at 502. Much of the Court's opinion was devoted to an exposition of these provisions, see id., at 502-512, but for present purposes only two features are relevant: (1) excise taxes imposed on sugar sales within Russia were remitted on exports; and (2) the exporter received, in addition, a certificate entitling its bearer to sell an amount of sugar in Russia, equal to the quantity exported, without paying the full excise tax otherwise due. This certificate was transferable and had a substantial market value related to the amount of tax forgiveness that it carried with it.

15 Petitioner also relies on language in G. S. Nicholas & Co. v. United States, 249 U. S. 34 (1919), suggesting that the countervailing-duty statute was intended to be read broadly. See id., at 39-41. As petitioner concedes, however, the only question before the Court in that case was whether a direct bounty on exportation of liquor from Great Britain was a "bounty or grant" within the meaning of the statute, see Brief for Petitioner 16-17, and the Court did not address the question of whether nonexcessive remission of an indirect tax fell within the statute.

The Secretary, following the same interpretation of the statute that he followed here, imposed a countervailing duty based on the value of the certificates alone, and not on the excise taxes remitted on the exports themselves.16 Downs, the importer, sought review, claiming that the Russian system did not confer any countervailable bounty or grant within the meaning of the 1897 statute. He did not otherwise challenge the amount of the duty assessed by the Secretary."

The issue as it came before this Court, therefore, was whether a nonexcessive remission of an indirect tax, together with the granting of an additional benefit represented by the value of the certificate, constituted a "bounty or grant." Since the amount of the bounty was not in question, neither the parties nor this Court focused carefully on the distinction between remission of the excise tax and conferral of the certificate. Petitioner argues, however, that certain broad language in the Court's opinion suggests that mere remission of a tax, even if nonexcessive, must be considered a bounty or grant within the meaning of the statute. Petitioner relies in particular on the following language:

"The details of this elaborate procedure for the production, sale, taxation and exportation of Russian sugar are of much less importance than the two facts which appear clearly through this maze of regulations, viz.: that no sugar is permitted to be sold in Russia that does not pay an excise tax of R. 1.75 per pood, and that sugar exported pays no tax at all.... When a tax is imposed

16 See Memorandum from the Secretary of the Treasury (1901), reprinted in App. 49-51; T. D. 20407, 2 Synopsis of Decisions 996, 997-998 (1898); T. D. 22814, 4 Treas. Dec. 184 (1901); Downs v. United States, 113 F. 144, 145 (CA4 1902).

17 In rejecting Downs' claim, both the United States Board of General Appraisers and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals identified the "bounty" as residing in the value of the certificates granted upon exportation. See T. D. 22984, 4 Treas. Dec. 405, 410-411, 413 (1901); Downs v. United States, supra, at 145.

upon all sugar produced, but is remitted upon all sugar exported, then, by whatever process, or in whatever manner, or under whatever name it is disguised, it is a bounty upon exportation." Id., at 515.

This passage is inconsistent with both preceding and subsequent language which suggests that the Court understood the "bounty" to reside in the value of the certificates. At one point the Court stated that "[t]he amount [the exporter] receives for his export certificate [on the market], say, R. 1.25, is the exact amount of the bounty he receives upon exportation. Ibid.18 And the Court in conclusion specifically endorsed the Fourth Circuit's holding to the same effect, see n. 17, supra:

"[T]he Circuit Court of Appeals found: "That the Russian exporter of sugar obtained from his government a certificate, solely because of such exportation, which is worth in the open market of that country from R. 1.25 to R. 1.64 per pood, or from 1.8 to 2.35 cents per pound. Therefore we hold that the government of Russia does secure to the exporter of that country, as the inevitable result of its action, a money reward or gratuity whenever he exports sugar from Russia.' We all concur in this expression of opinion." 187 U. S., at 516.

Given this other language, we cannot read for its broadest implications the passage on which petitioner relies. In our view the passage does no more than establish the proposition.

18 The Court also noted that "[i]t is practically admitted in this case that a bounty equal to the value of [the] certificates is paid by the Russian government, and the main argument of the petitioner is addressed to the proposition that this bounty is paid, not upon exportation, but upon production." 187 U. S., at 512. This latter argument was based on the fact that the 1897 statute covered only bounties on exportation and not those on production. In 1922, Congress amended the statute to cover bounties on production and manufacture as well as exportation. Tariff Act of 1922, supra, n. 8.