FOREIGN TRADE: The Bars Go Up

Last week the U. S. Government formally acknowledged that when a world goes to war, foreign trade becomes a weapon of national policy—two-edged. On both the import and export front, materials vital to U. S. defense were removed from the shrinking belt of free trade.

Imports. Last year Congress told the U. S. Treasury it could start laying in a stock pile of strategic war materials, appropriated a mere $10,000,000 for the project. Hence the Government stock piles last week were mere mounds. Particularly inadequate were its stores of two materials whose immediate supply depends on the Far East: rubber (30,000...

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