International trade in tobacco reflects consumer preferences for various 

 types of manufactured tobacco products. As tastes in consumption changed over 

 a period of years, so did the demand for various types of tobacco. The popu- 

 larity of snuffing in the 18th century gave way to pipe smoking and then to 

 cigarettes. The requirement for leaf tobacco shifted accordingly from dark 

 tobaccos in earlier years to flue-cured, light air-cured, and oriental types 

 for cigarettes in more recent years. This changing pattern of consumer oref- 

 erences and the resulting popularity of various types of tobacco clearly af- 

 fected the geography of tobacco production and trade on a worldwide scale. 



International trade in tobacco is affected tremendously by governmental 

 restrictions which have continued to increase over the years and now con- 

 stitute one of the most important factors influencing such trade. The opera- 

 tion of government tobacco monopolies, tariff levels, import quotas, restric- 

 tions upon the use of foreign exchange, state trading, bilateral and com- 

 pensation agreements, preferential duties, guaranteed markets, export sub- 

 sidies, manipulation of currency exchange rates, mixing regulations, and 

 economic unions, such as the recent European Economic Community — all have a 

 direct, and usually restrictive, relationship on tobacco trade and tend to 

 channel imports from selected sources. 



The United States has been the world's most important producer and ex- 

 porter of tobacco throughout its history. About one-third of the U.S. pro- 

 duction currently moves into the export market. The major portion of this 

 leaf is high-quality flue-cured and burley tobacco for use in the traditional 

 American-blended cigarette in world markets. Turkey and Greece are the lead- 

 ing exporters of aromatic (oriental) tobacco and the United States is the 

 principal importer of these types. 



The United Kingdom is the largest individual leaf tobacco importer and 

 now takes about one-fifth of all leaf tobacco moving in world trade. This 

 leaf is mostly flue-cured for cigarette manufacture. The United Kingdom does 

 not produce any tobacco. Germany, the second largest importer, also has a 

 considerable domestic leaf production. The European Economic Community is the 

 largest single area market for tobacco. This Economic Community produces about 

 one-third of its annual requirements and must import to fulfill its needs. The 

 United States is the third largest importer of tobacco, consisting of oriental 

 leaf from Turkey and Greece which is used as a complementary ingredient in the 

 American-blend cigaratte, cigar types for use in cigars, and smaller quanti- 

 ties of other kinds. 



World trade in manufactured tobacco products is considerably less im- 

 portant than that in leaf. The extremely protectionist policies of governments 

 in most areas favor their own domestic manufacturing industry. Cigarettes are 

 the most important tobacco product moving in international trade but the 

 volume is relatively small, compared with total production and consumption. 

 Most of the total world output is consumed in the producing countries, for ex- 

 ample, the United States, a major cigarette trader, exported about 32 billion 

 cigarettes in 1971 which represented only 5 percent of the total produced. 

 Significantly smaller quantities of other products including cigars, chewing 

 tobacco, snuff and pipe tobacco move in world trade. 



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