Negotiating with Khrushchev

One result of Harold Macmillan's trip to Moscow last month was his arrangement with Premier Nikita Khrushchev to send a trade mission to the Soviet Union "in the near future." Last week the Russians gave a rude shock to British businessmen whose hopes had been roused by windy Communist talk of a $2.5 billion rise in East-West trade. Before a British commercial group in London, a Soviet trade expert read off a blunt message from Nikita Khrushchev: "Countries that are interested in increasing their exports to the Soviet Union should increase their purchases from it." Most of what the Russians are willing to sell (e.g., tinned salmon), the British are unwilling to buy. Britain already imports more from the Russians than it sells to them. Besides, Khrushchev made plain, he is interested in East-West trade only "provided that credits are extended us," and if the British do not want trade that badly, "we shall not take umbrage."

British businessmen are slowly learning that there are other factors discouraging East-West trade than the U.S.-imposed embargo list, which they used to cry out against. Present proportion of U.K. trade with Russia: 1.5% of British exports.