The USTR cites U.S. participation in two trade agreements on raw materials: the International Tropical Woods Agreement and the International Coffee Agreement (ICA). These two agreements form intergovernmental organizations with boards of directors. Controlling the market price of certain raw materials has adverse effects both politically and economically. The rigour of the export quotas introduced under the tin agreement from December 1957 to September 1960 appears to have had a long-term effect on production capacity; When restrictions on the export of tin were eased, production was unable to accelerate with a strong recovery in consumption and, therefore, this product is a classic example of the irreversible supply curve. One possible lesson of Fidel Castro`s Cuban experience is that there is a subtle, unopened form or form of control of economic markets and a degree of political tyranny. Such a philosophy was shared by supporters of the Anti-Corn-Law League in 19th-century England, who built their case on a supposed link between free trade and world peace. Historically, U.S. policy on international commodity agreements has been marked by some ambivalence. Until recently, it has only participated in agreements that are of interest to the United States, particularly the international wheat agreement. Even in the case of sugar (where the United States remains a net importer), it has acted more in a producer than among consumers; Too large a gap between domestic and foreign prices would embarrass the continuation of the national sugar control system. From time to time, the United States has co-ordded the idea of a lead and zinc agreement to end an existing system of unilaterally imposed import quotas, which has caused great irritation in trade relations with Mexico, Peru, Australia and Canada. (3) Note price levels.
As best illustrated by the failure of negotiations on a revised sugar agreement in 1951 and a cocoa agreement in 1963, exporting countries are not prepared to accept the necessary trade-offs unless prices are extremely low. There is a great gap between the principles underlying these provisions and the harsh realities of the agreements that were actually negotiated in the post-war period. The U.S.S.R. continues to vote on the international sugar agreement and the international wheat agreement as an exporting country, although the dynamism of international trade is such that it has recently become a major net importer of both countries. In the present circumstances, the United States, although not itself a member of the ITA, is in fact setting a ceiling for international tin prices by regulating the rate at which tin disposals are produced from that country`s strategic stocks. In the case of wheat, too, the international market was less dominated by IWA than by the oligopolistic pricing practices of the Canadian Wheat Board and the U.S. Commodity Credit Corporation. The membership of a large number of nations in the current international agreements on raw materials can only complicate administrative and decision-making processes, whereas in at least one case – the UK`s decision not to side with the 1953 IWA – the absence of a major wheat-importing country could have had a beneficial effect in moderating the exercise of oligopolistic power.
