Sweeping into the Air France storeroom at Los Angeles International Airport, U.S. Customs agents recently seized $50,000 in gold and 15 tons of merchandise, mostly small shipments of videocassette recorders, lawn chairs, cameras and even a video-game system. The intended destination: Viet Nam, which since 1975 has been on the U.S. embargo list for all but humanitarian goods. Yet no one was arrested. The raid, said a Customs spokesman, was meant only to "send a message to those who would blatantly violate the law."
The incident was a reminder of the schizoid U.S. trade policy toward Viet Nam, perhaps intended as...
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