ABSTRACT
Discussions of US trade and investment policies toward the former Soviet Union have been dominated by realist explanations, which linked US policy to national security concerns. This chapter offers an alternative explanation of US trade strategy toward the USSR. US trade relations with socialist countries in the post-war period were characterized by different goals and practices than those nominally applied to trade with capitalist states. Once the new stopgap legislation was passed, the Nixon administration turned to preparing its comprehensive policy for liberalizing East-West commercial relations. Early in 1973, the Nixon administration finally presented comprehensive trade proposals, asking Congress to authorize participation in a new round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade negotiations, reform US antidumping law, improve the remedies for alleged "unfair trade practices," and increase East-West commercial ties by awarding most-favored nation status to the Soviet Union. The interaction between interest groups and political institutions generated the pattern of shifting US policies.
