Reagan’s grain decision still mystifies

Press, 19 May 1981, Page 9

Reagan’s grain decision still mystifies

By

ROY GUTMAN,

Of

NZPA-Reuter WASHINGTON President Ronald Reagan’s lifting of-the partial embargo on grain sales to the Soviet Union has prompted so much criticism at home and abroad that the foreign policy costs seem to outweigh possible political gains. Three weeks after Mr Reagan acted against the advice of the Secretary of State (Mr Alexander Haig), there are no signs of a windfall for American farmers who demanded the move in hopes of making early big sales to the Soviet Union.

The Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Dr Joseph Luns) said in a rare public criticism that the decision “has weakened the position of the United States” and “plays the game as Moscow wants it.”

The Japanese Prime Minister (Mr Zenko Suzuki) said he was baffled that his country, a supporter of the embargo and other punitive measures imposed after the 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, was not consulted in advance.

Peking also said it was puzzled, though most grain producers found the embargo an irritant and some, such as France, wanted to resume sales to Moscow.

Mr Reagan’s decision has prompted questions about the long-term costs that may nag his Administration for some time.

Senior State Department officials fear the lifting of the; embargo without advance consultations will weaken the effect of an overall trade embargo which the United States and its'allies are planning should- Moscow intervene in Poland, At the same time officials are trying to determine whether the United States action, taken unilaterally without any quid pro quo from the Soviet side, is viewed in Moscow as a sign of weakness belying Mr Reagan’s tough anti-Soviet .rhetoric. <

A third , lingering question is whether Mr Reagan

rightly asserted that the embargo had been ineffective. There is the broader issue about whether food can or should be used as an instrument of foreign policy. A senior State Department ■official said Mr Reagan had been aware of the potential adverse reaction before making his announcement and the only explanation was that “he was being bloodyminded about carrying out a campaign pledge.” Mr Reagan’s decision has led to more strains between the State Department and the White House. State Department officials are voicing the same criticism in private as the former Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, and the former United States Ambassador in Moscow, Malcolm Toon, are stating in public.

Mr Vance said it was a serious mistake to lift the embargo. “It gives the wrong signal. It raises some question about our constancy and ability to stay the course we set.”

He said it created a credibility problem with American allies in their efforts to assemble measures in the event of a Soviet intervention in Poland.

This view was echoed by a senior State Department official. “Without exception, the reaction has been negative,” he said. “At a time when we are going through a period of adjustment and less coherence and consistency than intended, this action may have a very adverse connotation for our allies. On a pure cost-benefit analysis, I just can’t understand the decision.”

Mr Toon called the decision a- “bad strategic mistake” and said the timing was particularly unfortunate. It should have been delayed until after July 10 when the Polish Communist Party holds jts reform congress. “People in , Washington didn’t understand the purpose of the embargo. It was not to get the Soviets out; of Afghanistan but to send the message that there could be .business as usual,” he said.'

On the broad issue of food

as a foreign policy instrument, Mr Vance said the decision to embargo all grain sales above the eigjit million tonnes promised in the current United States-Soviet accord was “not arrived at lightly by out Government or by our allies.”

The use •of . food as a weapon could be debated, he said, adding that the effect in the Soviet Union was not to cause a shortage of bread but of meat, since cattle were denied grain. The other main example of food as an instrument of policy is the growing American commitment to sell Poland grain and dairy products on favourable credit terms or at reduced cost.

There is concern among current and former officials that) the United States, now providing S67OM in commodity credits and in effect giving more than SIOOM in dairy goods, may get too deeply involved. “I would not go too far down this road,” Mr Toon said. We haven’t thought it all the way through. We sympathise with the Poles and do not want to see them suffer. If and when the Soviets go into Poland, we face a real dilemma.

“The fundamental problem will be, do you want to make the Soviets pay the price (by cutting food supplies to Poland) and thereby "hurting the Poles?”

The former Assistant Agriculture Secretary, Dale Hathaway, echoed this concern. “If something should happen, the Poles might be multiple victims of unfortunate circumstances. The question we will face is how to justify riot only sales but also credit to regimes stamping. out;trends that we believe. highly favourable.” Support for the use of food as a foreign ; policy instrument coiries from some unlikely quarters, among them Jean Mayer, a leading nutri-tionist,-who is now president of TUfts University. ■;,' Mr Mayer, has: led efforts to: have the .United Nations set up an‘international convention outlawing starvation as a weapon, but American use of food as a weapon against the Soviet Union was

a very different issue, he said.

. “It (the embargo) did not create starvation but made life difficult by cutting down the meat rations. That is a very different thing from organising starvation.” He criticised Mr Reagan’s action as “very odd timing,” and a real interference by domestic interests in foreign policy. In announcing the decision, President. Reagan said he was carrying out a campaign promise to end a policy that had been ineffective. But that is a matter of some dispute. The senior State Department official said the embargo worked, mainly because Moscow had bad harvests for two years. . ; He .said Moscow, would have bought 33 or 34 million tonnes of grain abroad but received only 30 million tonnes.

It had to buy wheat, less efficient as a feedgrain than corn, and make up the shortfall by buying flour and evf" tapioca, a product of the tropical casava fruit. Moscow also paid a premium for Argentine grain, its main alternative source, and dipped into its reserves of feedgrains. The Agriculture Department’s hopes for early talks with Moscow on possible new grain sales have been dashed.

The Agriculture Secretary (Mr John Block) said after the embargo was lifted on April 24 that talks had already opened on a grain deal. But his aides had only informed Soviet officials of America’s willingness to expand sales and negotiate a five-year pact to replace the one that expired on September 30, officials ’said. The Soviet Union, meanwhile, has stepped up its buying of grain from Argentina, up to 700,000 tonnes of corn and sorghum since April 24, according to; traders in Buenos Aires. . This brought Soviet pur-; chases from Argentina in the 1980-81 crop year to about nine million tonnes, twice the; figure Moscow and Buenos Aires had agreed