East-West Trade
HARVEY, MARY FRANCIS
East-West Trade By Mary Francis Harvey Administration now favors it for domestic political reasons In recent testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Harold E. Stassen, Foreign...
...This is certainly paradoxical news, for greater East-West trade has been a top-priority objective of Soviet foreign policy since Stalin's death...
...But his arguments were pretty weak...
...Should this plot come to full maturity, it will represent only another example of how Kremlin strategists work to make "theory" come true...
...But, even before that, Chinese Communists had been reported seeking trade deals with Britain and the West German Republic...
...if they can sell their goods to the Communists, there will be less pressure on the United States to lower tariffs and permit foreign firms to compete in our domestic market...
...Once Western nations have geared their economies to trade with the Communist bloc, the Kremlin always has the power to cut off this trade, thus plunging the "capitalist" countries into the predicted "crisis" and creating new political instability of major proportions...
...East-West Trade By Mary Francis Harvey Administration now favors it for domestic political reasons In recent testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Harold E. Stassen, Foreign Operations Administrator, argued that increased "non-strategic" trade between our European allies and the Communist bloc would "carry a net advantage to the free world...
...Stassen, if the West refused to send Russia peaceful goods it would "hand to the Soviet rulers one of the most powerful cold-war weapons we could devise...
...Ergo, Mr...
...Stassen argues that East-West trade carries a "net advantage to the free world...
...The current trade negotiations in Geneva between delegates from European nations and the Soviet satellites were the direct result of an invitation extended in Malenkov's speech at Stalin's funeral...
...What is this high-sounding principle...
...This is dubious...
...Peking will march to victory while Paris wallows in a spectacular general strike as the "inevitable" depression descends...
...Stassen can be sure, attribute any consumer gains to "capitalist" productivity...
...Stassen's new East-West trade policy is no substitute for desirable changes in American foreign economic relationships...
...These policies begin with the effort to balance the budget??to be achieved by reducing foreign aid...
...In this case, however, the "theory" is being helped along by the kind of economic nationalism that prevents this country from enacting even the weak proposals of the Randall Commission for lowering tariff barriers...
...Stassen tried to say that the Kremlin isn't happy over this deal...
...Optimistically, he predicted that "stabilization [of Europe's economy] cannot be obtained without access to our markets and sources of raw material...
...In 1925, Stalin boasted that the Bolshevik Revolution had detached one-sixth of the world from the "capitalist sphere...
...The Communist Presidium will not, Mr...
...They will have to accept a 'coexistence' for a time...
...But this weapon has been in the Kremlin's hands for several years, and it could not divide the Western world if European countries could trade in the West, instead of being forced to rely on the Communists for economic survival...
...According to Mr...
...Well, it was Lenin who said that "the way to Paris lies through Peking...
...Our allies regain their economic hinterlands behind the Iron Curtain, while Americans reduce foreign aid and maintain protective tariffs...
...Lenin was aware that nations trading with one another become dependent on this trade for their economic health...
...East-West trade also gives our allies access to the markets of Soviet-dominated countries...
...What did Stalin mean by "for a time...
...Stassen's new thesis is consistent with the "new look" policies of the present administration...
...Obviously, if our European allies can increase profitable trade with the Soviet bloc and obtain needed raw materials which are costly when purchased from "dollar" sources, these nations will have less need for American handouts...
...More likely, Georgi Malenkov will say, as he did at Stalin's funeral, that the Soviet Union welcomes trade and business relations with all the world "based on the Lenin-Stalin premise of 'coexistence...
...Even if East-West trade helps provide the Russian people with a slightly better standard of living, this will only redound to the credit of George Malenkov and the Soviet system, which is now proving incapable of solving basic economic problems...
...Apparently, enlarged East-West trade has become??almost overnight and with little serious debate??an objective of American foreign policy...
...and it has pushed the theme at other fairs and conventions held throughout Europe during the past three years...
...Stassen also thinks East-West trade will help "maintain the basic friendship of people behind the Iron Curtain...
...As far back as the Prague Convention, in the summer of 1950, the Soviet Union advocated expanded trade...
Vol. 37 • April 1954 • No. 17
