Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume
XXXI, Foreign Economic Policy, 1973–1976
Press Release
Office of the Historian Bureau of Public
Affairs United States Department of State December 23, 2009
The Department of State released today Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976,
Volume XXXI, Foreign Economic Policy, 1973-1976. This volume documents
the major decisions of Presidents Richard M.
Nixon and Gerald R. Ford
in the realm of foreign economic policy, focusing in particular on international
monetary relations, international trade policy, and efforts to redress global
economic inequalities.
By the time of Richard Nixon's second
inauguration in January 1973, there was a clear need to reform the international
monetary system. The system of fixed exchange rates envisaged at the 1944
Bretton Woods conference had been under pressure for some time; indeed, it had
already broken down in the wake of the Nixon administration's August 1971 New Economic Policy, only to
be restored by the Smithsonian Agreement of December 1971. The final collapse of
the fixed exchange rate system is chronicled in the volume's first chapter,
which examines the exchange crises of February and March 1973. Efforts to
restructure the international monetary system, with particular emphasis on the
issues of exchange rate flexibility and the role of gold, are examined in the
volume's second chapter. The third and fourth chapters document the origins of
the Group of Seven (G-7) summit, an initiative that arose out of the unsettled
international monetary environment and the more general economic decline in the
industrialized world.
The fifth chapter, which covers trade policy, demonstrates more than any other
chapter in the volume the influence of domestic politics on U.S. foreign
relations. The chapter documents the White House's struggle to secure passage of
a major piece of trade reform legislation, the Trade Act of 1974, in the face of
significant domestic opposition. The most serious challenge faced by the
Nixon and Ford administrations was that posed by the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which was designed to link extension of most
favored nation (MFN) status to the Soviet Union
with its policies on Jewish emigration. The chapter also documents the beginning
of the Tokyo Round of trade negotiations, held under the auspices of the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), with
particular emphasis on the role of agriculture in those negotiations. The
Nixon administration's 1973 decision
to impose export controls, as well as foreign fears of U.S. protectionism, are
also covered in this chapter.
The volume's sixth, and final, chapter examines commodity policy and North-South
relations. It chronicles the United States attempts to grapple with the global
trade in primary commodities in a post-1973 oil embargo world, as well as its
efforts to redress persistent economic disparities between the industrialized
countries of the northern hemisphere and the less developed countries of the
south.
Like all recent Foreign Relations volumes, the emphasis of this volume is on the
formulation of policy, rather than on its implementation or on day-to-day
diplomacy. As in other volumes in the Nixon-Ford subseries, the
National Security Council and the Department of State play key roles in the
policy making process; however, in this volume, other agencies and offices, such
as the Department of Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Office of the
Special Representative for Trade Negotiations, are also prominent.
The volume is available as a downloadable PDF on the Office of the Historian
website at http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v31. Hard
copies of the volume will be available in early 2010 for purchase from the U.S.
Government Printing Office online at http://bookstore.gpo.gov (GPO S/N 044-000-02615-5; ISBN
978-0-16-084410-2), or by calling toll-free 1-866-512-1800 (D.C. area
202-512-1800). For further information please contact the Office of the
Historian at mailto:history@state.gov.