In 1981 the Federal Register published a declaration from President Reagan: "I determine that it is in the national interest for the Export-Import Bank ofthe United States to extend a credit in the amount of $120.7 million to the Socialist Republic of Romania (for) the purchase of two nuclear steam turbine generators."
This loan carried an interest rate of 7¾% for ten years, but the first payment wasn't due until July, 1989.
Not too long before this announcement, the administration had made public its "voluntary" restraints on the number of cars Japan can export to the United States.
These two items—subsidization of trade and its restriction—are all too typical of our present trade policy.
Although we think of ourselves as a free-trading nation, it takes more than 700 pages just to list all the tariffs on imported goods, and another 400 to inventory all the non-tariff restraints, such as quotas and "orderly marketing agreements."
A tariff is a tax levied on a foreign good, to help a special interest at the expense of American consumers.
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