ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the economic impact on the United States of imposing an embargo on US exports and on goods made elsewhere employing US technology, both of which were destined for use in the Soviet Union's project to build additional pipelines to transport natural gas from Siberia to Western Europe. The Soviet Union in the late 1960s began concluding agreements with Western European countries and firms to supply natural gas from the Siberian fields, discovered in the mid-1960s. Unable to persuade the Europeans not to go ahead with the scaled-down pipeline project, the Reagan Administration, citing its authority under the Export Administration Act of 1979, in December 1981 declared that US-made goods could not be exported for use in the pipeline. Previously-approved export licences were cancelled. The embargo was part of a package of measures announced as a response to the imposition of martial law in Poland.
