EC OFFICIAL FAULTS U.S. TRADE BILL Sir Roy Denman, Head of the EC Delegation in Washington, said pending U.S. trade legislation is a misguided attempt to deal with the nation's trade deficit and will spark retaliation if passed in its present form. "To think that you can deal with a trade deficit by legislation is a mistake," he told the Foreign Trade Association here. Denman told reporters that possible retaliation, which he warned of in a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, would not necessarily be on a product-for-product basis. "Retaliation does not have to be matched product to product," Denman said. He said in the case of textiles import restrictions, however, retaliation would be against U.S. textile exports. "Certainly, if restrictions were imposed on European exports of textiles to the U.S., the Community would be likely to retaliate with restrictions on U.S. textile exports to Europe," Denman said. He also took exception to U.S. proposals to require countries with large current account surpluses with the U.S. to cut those surpluses or face special tariffs. "This would conflict with international obligations, throw a large wrench into the current round of trade negotiations and could easily boomerang," he warned of the tariff proposals. Denman also took exception to U.S. efforts to seek reciprocity in specific trade sectors. "Forcing reciprocity in one sector by imposing barriers would simply lead to retaliation from the other party," he said, adding that overall reciprocity can only be achieved by trading off disadvantages in one sector for advantages in another.