THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1950. USA DOLLAR PROBLEM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27357, 5 April 1950, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1950. USA DOLLAR PROBLEM

There are probably millions of people in the United States —as there are millions outside—who do not realise that the United States ’has its “ dollar gap ” and trade problem, but this is so. It is a problem as serious as that which confronts Great Britain and Western Europe for it is the other aspect of the same problem. The hundreds of millions of dollars granted already for European aid are rather more than an unexampled gesture of enlightened self-interest. To a large extent this money can be regarded as a subsidy to the home producer —an artificial form of support until European trade is sufficiently restored to earn money to buy ./American goods. This means, of i course, that in some cases European ’ industry is being financed so that 'it can enter into competition with .•■American goods on the American ;• market. Naturally these are hard /lessons for the average citizen of /'the United States to learn. The op- ' position to the annual applications "for Marshall Aid funds can—to a ’/ degree—be described as political exploitation of this failure to understand the realities of the situation. I{ is also contended that the current American emphasis on the need for integration, now that a .measure of recovery has been won, vis in some ways a smokescreen be>hind which American leadership has '/been able to doze. There is as great i/a need now to “sell” the idea of ".Marshall Aid to the American people as there was in the vital first stage of ; post-war reconstruction. The essence of the American problem as seen by a writer in an American financial review is simply /stated as follows: “First, we need a liberal trade policy, by which is ■ meant a willingness to import as y well as export. There is no sense ;dn our spending billions to help other ■'countries increase their production in order to acquire more dollars if, /as soon as they begin to earn these dollars by selling us more 1 goods that our people really want, we set- up barriers to keep such goods from coming to our shores.” It is this same point which has been placed first in the memorandum just issued /by the Presidential Secretary. The effort which Mr Truman has ordered to be made to solve America’s trade 'problem is, however, not the first ■attempt in this direction. Last year an American trade mission visited Europe and suggested how exports to the United States could be increased; the Economic Co-operation Administration is, for the first time, arranging for various European countries to hold trade fairs in the United States; and late last year the American National Retail Dry Goods Association made a report to ECA in which it listed 400 items which it was felt could be sold in quantity in the American market, and specified price ranges and gave advice on “customer appeal.” One difficulty is that Customs’ policy is not yet marching in step with State Department policy. The Customs regulations for decades have been built up for the protection of the home market —and so far the Ad- ■, ministration has not found a suitable occasion, on which to ask Congress to pull down the tariff walls.