I agree that this is wrong. We cannot buy friends. and we should not use foreign aid programs as a political weapon either to keep friendly governments In power or to keep potentially unfriendly ones from criticizing us. Where President Nixon is wrong. however. is in his attempt to analogize dollar diplomacy to the current efforts to get the Soviet Union to liberalize her emigration policy and open up her society to dissent. Russia is not the recipient of dribs and drabs of foreign aid. We are not attempting to buy a friend. as we tried to do In Egypt. India and other Third World nations. Russia is a great and powerful nation. with whom we are trading. often to the disadvantage of the American people. When the President says that American power is limited and that we cannot gear our foreign policy to transformation of other societies. he misses the point that motivated those who cosponsored the Freedom of Emigration Act in both the House and Senate. Large majorities in both Houses felt that it was not a question of bending the Soviets to our will by offering them the sweet apple of increased trade. Trade with the Soviet Union has grown tremendously in the past 5 years. without the benefit of most favored nation status.
Keywords matched
emigration Emigration