East-West-Trade

Abstract

The observer of the post-war trade scene can only commend the gradual breaking down of the barriers to East-West trade. Since 1960, for example, 20 per cent of the increase in Canadian exports went to socialist countries. In 1965, these sales, largely of wheat, made a contribution of over $600,000,000 to our balance of payments. Perhaps they also added something to the developing climate of peaceful relations. A volume of essays devoted to the problems and prospects of EastWest trade is therefore an auspicious event, particularly since it is the first such volume published in this country.* This book grew out of a conference of academic specialists, government officials and businessmen held at Carleton University in March 1965 and was sponsored by the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. It tells us something about the opportunities and even more about the pitfalls in East-West trade and, indirectly, about the temper of the Canadian response to these prospects. A lucid and perceptive analysis of the trends in East-West trade is offered by Dr. Leon M. Herman of the U.S. Library of Congress. He notes that two separate trading interests grown up among western countries. In 1964, for example, Western European countries imported some $3 billion worth of goods from Eastern Europe while the corresponding American figure was about $100 million. Western European countries have, in fact, a long tradition of trade with Eastern Europe since their economies are largely complementary. They require raw materials and foodstuffs and export, in turn, machinery and finished products. But another relevant factor that accounts for this disparity in Western trade is the climate of public opinion which is different in the United States and in Western Europe. We in the United States, Dr. Herman notes, have kept ourselves largely aloof from the trade overtures which the Soviet leadership has made towards the West since the end of the Stalin era.