Evening star., 1934-10-21
TRADE OF LATIN AMERICA
SOUGHT BY UNITED STATES
Started by State Depart
ment With Six Nations in Accordance
With Administration Policy.

Colombia buys cotton cloth, food
stuffs, machinery and implements, iron
and steel, automobiles, railway sup
plies, paper, pharmaceutical products,
etc, from the United States, but she
sells the United States coffee, petro-
leum, bananas, gold, platinum, cattle
hides, straw and fiber hats, etc.
Costa Rica in exchange for wheat
flour, lard and other foodstuffs, cotton
fabrics, electrical materials, pharma-
ceutical supplies and petroleum prod
ucts from the United States, sends to
this country coffee, bananas and
cacao.
El Salvador sells coffee, cane sugar,
balsams. siSal and henequen fiber to
the United States. Guatemala sells
cattle hides, bananas, coffee, lemon
grass oils, chrome ore, art works. etc.
Honduras and Nicaragua also sell
great quantities of some of these trop-
ical products, especially bananas and
coffee, and, like the other countries,
buy foodstuffs, cotton cloth, machin-
cry, metal products, electrical sup
plies, ETC., from the United States.
Without exception, the trade of
each one of these countries with the
United States has been reduced to less
than half, or a third of the value in
volved in it five years ago. What the
prospect of new and vitalizing trade
agreements means to all of them can
be easily realized when one remem-
bers that the countries mentioned are
almost exclusively dependent on their
exports.
Leaders Welcome News.
It Is only natural that statesmen
and editorial writer's throughout Latin
America should welcome the news of
the approaching negotiation of re-
ciprocal trade pacts with the United
States. One of their main objections
to the sincerity of their Northern col
leagues in their advocacy of Pan
Americanism has been, precisely, the
lack of fairness and lack of equili-
brium prevalent in inter-American
economic relationships.
Nbw, they are promised new trade
deal. Now, they hear the Secretary
of State proclaim ''the willingness of
the United States to re-examine any
commercial policies or methods of its
own which foreign countries might
consider unfairly restrictive of trade"
and to revise "all sections of American
tariff laws that might be considered
unduly prejudicial."
They hear the Secretary Of Com
merce acknowledge an error of past
policies: In spite of our efforts to
deceive ourselves during the recent
years, it is fundamental that we can
not sell goods to other nations with
out permitting them to sell goods to
US. There is no consistency in policy
under which our Government concen-
trates its trade -promotive efforts on
the exports of American goods while
placing every possible obstacle in the
way Of the imports that are necessary
if our foreign customers are to be able
to pay for our goods and thereby meet
their obligations to U.S."
The American people, as Secretary
Hull has said, had been taught that
they could eat their cake and have
it too, that they could export to every
body without importing anything from
anybody. They have learned differ
emily, however, since 1929, and they
have had to pay dearly for their pre-
vious error; the past five years have
undone two decades Of pioneering
building of inter- american trade.
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