By 1975, the United States was the only industrialized nation not committed to adopting metric units. Fearing a decline in the nation’s share of international trade, the U.S. Congress endorsed the metric system. Government officials planned a program of voluntary conversion to metric units that was to take ten years. Many Americans disliked the unfamiliar measures and, in the 1980s, President Reagan sharply reduced funds for metric programs. Meanwhile, metric units had been widely adopted in some industries.
