ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the East-West trade policies of the Western alliance. It considers briefly the general issues involved in Western policy-making which are seen as falling into roughly three categories; those concerning the strategic, political and commercial objectives of East-West trade policy. The chapter discusses the question of who takes the lead in the West in trying to formulate Western policy and how this is likely to influence future developments. The striking parallels between the 1962–3 pipe embargo and the 1982 pipeline embargo help to illustrate how little the fundamental issues have changed. The Carter administration's policy on East-West trade pursued a number of objectives. The Reagan administration, or parts of it, had, however, learnt the problems of applying economic embargoes as a flexible instrument of economic diplomacy. The ending of the pipeline embargo in late 1982 resolved neither the question of fundamental differences in approach, nor the more specific issues such as CoCom, credit or energy dependence.
