ABSTRACT
The development of an integrated strategy and common policy for East-West trade has never been a simple task for the Western democracies. Dropping the embargo at the very time the US was prompting more Western alliance discipline in nonagricultural trade provoked the European response that "what is good for the American farmer is good also for Western European workers." An assessment of Western economic costs and benefits must take into account both the realities and perceptions of East-West trade. Conversely, technology already available to the Soviet Union was generally not embargoed as it would not achieve the security objectives noted earlier, but would be either politically motivated or be a throwback to the earlier but rejected policy of economic warfare. Perceptions of economic costs and benefits also involve the issues of agricultural trade and export credits. The West Germans, in particular, desire a more solid foundation, based on consistency, for economic relations and their policy of Ostpolitik.
