ABSTRACT
During the Cold War there was little controversy about East-West economic policy in the United States. As the United States led both West European and Japanese competitors in high technology, US industry saw a good chance to increase exports at the expense of its well established competitors on Eastern markets. As there is no broad societal support for detente in the United States, agricultural lobbies only acted in a defensive role. The United States practiced more restrictions than the Western European countries, so that even at a time of US liberalization it failed to adopt the lower Western European levels of control. For the United States as a whole it proved the weapon of US food power to be ineffective and thus damaged US prestige. The United States has also granted trade concessions to the People's Republic of China which it refused the Soviet Union.
