From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: In GATT They Trust (VI)
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 05:11:33 GMT

In GATT They Trust (VI)


The following article was taken from the _Covert Action_ Spring 1992
[special issue dedicated to  Native people's rights/struggles]
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Terry Allen is co-editor of CAIB [CovertAction Information Bulletin] 
and a journalist who has worked in the U.S. and abroad. 
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For more information about CovertAction Information Bulletin and
subscription information, please see bottom or email Rich Winkel at
rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
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================= 
Traditional Ploys 
================= 

Bush's attempt to solve a domestic economic crisis through 
manipulating world trade is part of a long, well-tested tradition. 
Soon after the Civil War, large crop surpluses in the U.S.  caused a 
terrible depression in domestic farm prices.  First, grain merchants 
pressured Washington to export the excess to Europe, thereby both 
increasing foreign revenues and ( by depleting domestic supply) 
increasing prices at home.  In Europe, however, this massive influx of 
grain drove down prices and precipitated widespread crisis and panic. 
European governments soon closed their markets to protect their food 
security, effectively ending this outlet for surplus U.S.  production. 

Some U.S.  policy makers then argued that the U.S.  should deal with 
the surpluss by following the European examplwould become secure 
overseas markets.  After intense national debate, a compromise was 
reached and the ideology that emerged was called the "open door 
policy." The U.S.  would mostly forego direct colonization in favor of 
prying open European colonial markets.  President Theodore Roosevelt's 
Secretary of State John Hay was the most articulate spokesperson for 
this "open door" approach, applying it first and most vigorously in 
China.  The economic objectives-unlimited and unregulated access to 
their markets and raw materials for U.S.-based companies-have 
dominated U.S.  relations with the Third World ever since. 

These objectives have also been important factors in the internecine 
quarrels among the industrial nations.  The economic crisis and chaos 
created by unregulated trade competition fueled both world wars.  In 
World War I, the struggle between European powers for colonial markets 
and sources of raw materials was crucial.  Woodrow Wilson saw the 
economic component clearly: 

  Is there any man here, is there any woman, let me say is there any 
  child here that does not know that the seed of war in the modern 
  world is industrial and commercial rivalry?...[T]he reason that so 
  many nations went against Germany was that they thought that Germany 
  would gain a commercial advantage over them [see article for 
  citation]. 

After World War I the economic hardships created by the impostition of 
reparations on Germany helped to fire the renewal of dangerous 
unregulated trade competition in Europe, while conflicts over raw 
materials, especially oil, brought the U.S.  and Japan into direct, 
and ultimately deadly conflict.  On the same day as the Pearl Harbor 
attack, Japan simultaneously seized the oil resources of the Dutch 
East Indies, now Indonesia, to relieve the strangling oil embargo that 
had been imposed by the U.S.  the previous year. 

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