VI. Issues in the Interplay of Technology, Trade, and Diplomacy 



U.S. foreign trade policy toward the Soviet Union has always been 

 motivated by a combination of political and economic factors. U.S. 

 policymakers have encouraged trade with the Soviet Union — in the 

 mid-1980s, in the immediate postwar period, and in the past few 

 years — because they believed that benefits would accrue to the U.S. 

 economy and that U.S. -Soviet diplomatic relations would improve. 

 At other times — in the 1920s and early 1930s and in the Cold War 

 period — trade has been restricted in order to discourage Soviet leaders 

 from pursuing policies considered hostile to U.S. interests. Indeed, this 

 inclination to use trade for political purposes is a deeply imbedded 

 tradition in American diplomacy dating back to the earliest years of 

 the republic. Moreover, commercial relations have been used to further 

 foreign policy goals. As observed by Professor Harold Berman, 



Of course, in one sense, all trade is "embedded in politics," but in another 

 sense, trade, like diplomacy and cultural and scientific exchange, is a way of 

 maintaining mutually advantageous relations among countries whether or not 

 they are politically antagonistic to each other. 1 " 



U.S.-Soviet trade has been characterized by the exchange of U.S. 

 technologically-advanced goods and services for Soviet raw materials. 

 While the absence of normal U.S.-Soviet trade relations has probably 

 been an economic burden to both countries, U.S. leaders have acted 

 under the assumption that the promise of trade (and U.S. technology) 

 to the Soviet Union was an effective lever for exacting political con- 

 cessions. Denial of trade, on the other hand, has been assumed to be a 

 barrier to Soviet industrial and technological progress. 



The U.S.-Soviet technology transfer, the new commercial relation- 

 ship, and U.S.-Soviet diplomatic relations present an interrelated pat- 

 torn of policy issues, illustrated by the following questions: 



(1) How will the emerging commercial relationship benefit the U.S. 

 economy ? 



(2) How can economic exchanges with the Soviet Union, particu- 

 larly those involving technology transfers, be used to further U.S. 

 foreign policy? 



(3) What changes are needed in negotiating procedures and commer- 

 cial institutions necessary to insure that the United States maximizes its 

 political and economic benefits? 



Rene-fit x to tlie United States From Expanded Trade With the Soviet 

 Union 

 The U.S. grain sales to the Soviet Union in 1972-73 and prospective 

 U.S.-Soviet cooperation in Siberian natural gas exploitation demon- 

 strate some of the potential benefits and costs of expanded U.S.-Soviet 



1,1 New York Times, Letter to the Editor, Apr. 2, 1973, p. 34. 



(594) 



