Trade or Suffocate

Some months ago a Chilean nitrate company—Chilean Antofagasto— found itself fresh out of locomotives for its narrow-gauge railroad. The company was strongly anti-Soviet. It had suffered from Communist-in-spired labor riots and vowed it would rather do business with the devil than with the Soviets. It turned to the United States with its order. But in the United States it found no supplier interested in the expensive job of mounting a big diesel on a narrowgauge chassis just to effect a sale of three locomotives. So, in the end, the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade filled the little order and sent along, free, a government specialist to see that the new locomotives worked. Now the formerly anti-Soviet Chilean company is also equipping its shops with some Soviet-made machine tools.

This is no isolated case. In the last decade Soviet trade with Latin America has grown by leaps and bounds while ours has dwindled. The Soviet Union opened her trade offensive in Latin America in 1952. In 1954 she became Uruguay’s number one foreign customer. In 1955 the trade of the Soviet bloc with Argentina had been boosted to $150 million. Our trade that year with Argentina skidded to $200 million. In 1958 our total Latin American trade slipped 10 per cent. In 1959 it slipped another 14 per cent. While we were losing both exports and imports in thirteen of the twenty Latin American Republics in 1959, the Soviet bloc was gaining in at least ten. Last year we slipped again. In all, in the last eight years, Soviet trade with Latin America has grown 700 per cent while ours has dwindled 28 per cent.

CW

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Charles Morrow Wilson

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Some months ago a Chilean nitrate company—Chilean Antofagasto— found itself fresh out of locomotives for its narrow-gauge railroad. The company was strongly anti-Soviet. It had suffered from Communist-in-spired labor riots and vowed it would rather do business with the devil than with the Soviets. It turned to the United States with its order. But in the United States it found no supplier interested in the expensive job of mounting a big diesel on a narrowgauge chassis just to effect a sale of three locomotives. So, in the end, the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade filled the little order and sent along, free, a government specialist to see that the new locomotives worked. Now the formerly anti-Soviet Chilean company is also equipping its shops with some Soviet-made machine tools.

This is no isolated case. In the last decade Soviet trade with Latin America has grown by leaps and bounds while ours has dwindled. The Soviet Union opened her trade offensive in Latin America in 1952. In 1954 she became Uruguay’s number one foreign customer. In 1955 the trade of the Soviet bloc with Argentina had been boosted to $150 million. Our trade that year with Argentina skidded to $200 million. In 1958 our total Latin American trade slipped 10 per cent. In 1959 it slipped another 14 per cent. While we were losing both exports and imports in thirteen of the twenty Latin American Republics in 1959, the Soviet bloc was gaining in at least ten. Last year we slipped again. In all, in the last eight years, Soviet trade with Latin America has grown 700 per cent while ours has dwindled 28 per cent.