Foreign Trade, Republicans: Dramatic Flourish, Empty Gesture

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FOREIGN TRADE

With a dramatic flourish, the Johnson Administration last week announced that it was cutting off existing U.S. military aid to Britain, France and Yugoslavia, banning new aid to Spain and Morocco. The reason: all five are trading with Castro's Cuba. But the dramatic flourish was, in fact, little more than an empty gesture, since the U.S. is not giving, and does not propose to give, any of the five enough aid to influence their trade policies. As it turned out, all the announcement did was highlight the breakdown of the trade embargo that the U.S. has tried to impose on Cuba.

Britain's Leyland Motors Limited is under a $10 million contract to send Cuba 400 buses, and Castro has an option to buy 1,000 more. British ships have made 145 trips to Cuba in the past 14 months. France is negotiating a $10 million truck deal with Castro. Spain has already sold 150 trucks to Cuba, has a pending deal to sell 100 fishing ships and two freighters. Yugoslavian cargo ships make the island a port of call. Three Moroccan freighters take phosphate rock, cork, sardines and manufactured goods to Cuba, return with Cuban sugar scheduled to amount to 250,000 tons this year.

Against Boycotts. All these nations are flouting the U.S.-imposed embargo for a very simple reason: they see profit in it. And as against that prospect, the Johnson action in cutting aid appears to be small patooties: a mere $7,400 to Britain; $28,000 to France; nothing to Yugoslavia, whose aid was actually suspended last year; and only the threat that future aid to Spain and Morocco may be withheld. Presumably realizing that the aid bans would have little or no effect, Secretary of State Dean Rusk last week seemed to give at least tacit approval to another reprisal tactic. Asked if he thought American consumers might boycott products made by foreign firms also selling to Cuba, Rusk replied: "We don't ourselves plan to organize any boycott against the goods of countries engaged in that trade. I think it is possible there may be some consumer reaction in this country with respect to firms that specifically engage in that trade."

Florida's Democratic Representative Paul Rogers suggested that Britain's Leyland Motors, which last year sold some 21,000 Triumph cars in the U.S., might be a fine starting point for a consumer boycott. There were bleats from abroad, and a State Department spokesman later swallowed Rusk's words. "The U.S.," he said, "does not favor consumer boycotts."

The Deal. When scolded for their willingness to trade with Castro, most U.S. allies have a ready answer. For one thing, they see little difference between Cuba and any other Communist country; they simply do not understand the particular resentment of the U.S. toward Castro. And feeling that way, they are quick to note that it was really the U.S. which led the way to increased trade with Communism in its $300 million wheat deal with Russia.