75-20-A2
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The Russian Wheat Deal[edit]
Transcript[edit]How many sides are there to the Russian Wheat Deal and which side should we be taking? I'll be right back. The Russians want to buy American wheat and American farmers want to sell their wheat. Anti-communist waterfront workers don't want to load the wheat on foreign ships to carry it to Russia. American consumers with the experience of the previous wheat sale and high food prices in mind are alarmed. Please don't think I'm leading up to a pat answer to all these problems. It just isn't that easy. If we believe in a free market, our farmer should be allowed to sell their produce anywhere in the world for the best price they can get. If we don't we make available to the consumer low-priced food at the expense of the farmer. Not inconsistent with that philosophy is our own interest in the matter of national security. If we believe the Soviet Union is hostile to the free world, and we must or we wouldn't be maintaining a nuclear defense and continuing NATO, then are we not adding to our own danger by helping the troubled Soviet economy? But isn't there also a moral issue? Are we not helping a godless tyranny maintain its hold on millions of helpless people? Wouldn't those helpless victims have a better chance of becoming free if their slave masters collapsed economically? One thing is certain, the threat of hunger to the Russian people is due to the Soviet obsession with military power. Nothing proves the failure of Marxism more than the Soviet Union's inability to produce weapons for its military ambitions and at the same time provide for their people's everyday needs. It only takes about 4% of our labor force to grow food for 211 million Americans and provide 80 percent of all the food shipped to the world's underdeveloped nations. On the other hand, fully one-third of Russia's workers are farming and still they'd starve without our wheat. The failure is not Russian it's communist, indeed every country that has collectivized its agriculture has gone downhill in farm production. But can America alone force the change to peaceful pursuits on Russia by refusing to sell or would we have to persuade the other free nations to do the same. Following such a course what would we do then about our farmers and the surplus they'd have on their hands? The wheat deal is beneficial to us economically. Right now with economic troubles and imbalance of trade maybe it benefits us enough to outweigh the strategic factor. In other words it strengthens us more than we'd be benefited by weakening them. But there is that moral question and it won't go away. The Soviet Union is an aggressor and a threat to world peace. It can remain so only by denying its people freedom and the basic commodities that make life worth living, things we take for granted. Tthe Russians have told us over and over again their goal is to impose their incompetent and ridiculous system on the world. We invest in armaments to hold them off but what do we envision as the eventual outcome? Either that they will see the fallacy of their way and give up their goal or their system will collapse or-and we don't let ourselves think of this we'll have to use our weapons one day. Maybe there is an answer-we simply do what's morally right. Stop doing business with them. Let their system collapse but meantime buy our farmers wheat ourselves and have it on hand to feed the Russian people when they finally become free. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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