Evening star., 1938-11-13
Urges Latin American
Trade Expansion
By OVEN L. SCOTT.

war ScareS, the Wlnd-up OF On-year elec-
tions and the apparent lifting of the
latest industrial depression.
The people of this country are to hear
much about the need for turning ma
tional attention to development of closer
trade and political relations with those
nations to the south. World events are
forcing the United States to pay more
heed to its own fences in its own hem
isphere.
But, at the same time, those who shape
American foreign policy are finding
themselves confronted with some very
practical questions.
Are the economic interests Of the
United States and of the Latin American
nations complementary, or are they COM
petitive? Is it true that Germany is
making drastic inroads into American
trade with the nations of South and
Central America? Is the United States
doing its part to hold the trade position
it has gained, or are other nations able
to offer better trade bargains?
The idea at the White House seems to
be that markets for American products
that gradually are closing in Europe and
Asia as the totalitarian nations chan
mel" trade can be replaced by markets to
be developed by American industrialists
in Latin America.
Facts and figures suggest great dis
illusionment If hopes are to be built upon
trade in this hemisphere.
The fact OF the matter is, first of all,
that only about 20 per cent of this coun-
try's 81, $50 ,00O, 900 in sales abroad is taken
by the Latin American nations Even
this one-f1fth of American export trade
is shaky. The result is that, if there are
relatively small sales losses, proportion
ately, in Europe, large percentage gains
must be made in trade with the markets
to the south.
But at that point the complications
begin.
Nations must pay for their purchases
OF goods either with borrowed money or
with goods or with gold.
Dlfhculty Of meeting interest and prin-
clpal payments on loans and investments
lies IN the fact that, except for Cuba with
her sugar and Brazil with her coffee the
Latin American countries often need to
sell abroad the very products of which
the United States itself has a surplus
that it wants to sell abroad.
Mexico has her oil and her copper:
Argentina her beef and her wheat; Bra
I'll her cotton as well as her coffee; Chile
her copper and nitrates; Venezuela her
oil, and so on down the line.
In other words the things that Latin
American nations most need to market
as means of providing themselves with
income are exactly the things that Ger
many and Italy and Japan-the totali-
tarian States-need to buy. And the
things that Germany and Italy and
Japan have to sell-machinery and tex
tiles and military supplies and manufac-
tured goods-are exactly the things that
Latin American nations need to buy.
If Cordell Hull, the American secre
tary OF State, could only sell the world
on his trade policies, this fact would not
be OF overwhelming Importance
Mr.. Hull wants trade to flow around
the world free from conscious overall di-
ASSeAoAA oAAA AACC 1AOlii dS IIldIlS barriers
IN the form OF tariffs and quotas and
exchange restrictions as possible. The
Hull program is modelled after the Brit
lsh free trade program that served so
long to enable England to act as the
banker and broker of the world.
Now new idea is displacing the Hull
idea in most nations except the United
States. Even the British are turning on
the very trade idea that gave them their
power. The new idea is that each nation
should buy from those nations that buy
from it. Each nation at the same time
under this scheme, balances it's trade
with each of its customers, buying only
about as much as it sells.
Thus, Germany offers to exchange her
machinery and her industrial goods for
Brazilian cotton, Mexican oil and Chilean
copper. Japan offers her textiles for
these and other products. Latin Ameri-
can nations are told that they need not
go into debt to get the things that they
want on this trade basis. They merely
barter what they have for what they
need.
When it comes to that sort of trade
game, the United States is up a stump.
This country already has more oil and
cotton and copper and wheat and beef
than it knows what to do with. What
the United States wants is to have the
Latin American nations sell their COM
modities to nations that do need them
and then use the resulting foreign ex-
change to buy American industrial prod
ucts. Totalitarian states now are baking
at that once-accepted way of doing busi-
ness.
That raises the question: What prog
resS are these nations making to date in
taking business away from the United
States?
The answer so far is: Not much. But
this answer must be qualified with the
observation that the future apparently
is going to provide very different story.
Official Department of Commerce fig
ures show that, during the first half of
1888, in most Latin American nations,
the United States more than held its
own with its sales to these nations. This
country increased the proportion of the
Brazilian, Argentine, Cuban, Chilean,
Peruvian and other markets that it filled,
The Germans at the same time lost heav-
lily in the Argentine market and made
small progress elsewhere. German gains
were largely at the expense of the British,
although the total German trade, even so,