Word: east-west
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...problem may soon lead to some difficult negotiations over East-West trade. At issue is most-favored-nation status (MFN), whereby a foreign country is able to export goods to the U.S. at much lower tariff rates. Actually, MFN is a misnomer, since over 95% of the U.S.'s trading partners enjoy that status. Only a handful of Communist countries, including China and the Soviet Union, face discriminatory tariffs that in some cases are double. The Soviet Union is barred from MFN by the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1974 trade bill, which links commercial opportunities for Communist governments...
...most direct East-West confrontation occurred in isolated Berlin, when the Soviets suddenly shut down all roads, rails and waterways in an effort to starve the city into submission. The U.S. and Britain responded with an unprecedented airlift. Bright C-54s and battered C-47s touched down at West Berlin's Tempelhof Airport at a daytime rate of one every three minutes. At its peak, these allies ferried a record of 12,940 tons of fuel and food in one day during what they called "Operation Vittles." After ten months the Soviets opened the ground corridors to the West...
Computer sales have long required Government approval. But the energy offensive is all new, and it brought a growl from Moscow, as well as a bitter response from American businessmen, disgusted at their new role as Ping Pong balls in East-West diplomacy. It also highlighted the longstanding sharp differences of opinion within the Administration over the wisdom of using trade to pressure or punish the Communists...
...which was the keystone of the Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy and was widely labeled (somewhat to their dismay) detente, reached its peak with the balmy summit meetings of Nixon and Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev in 1972 and 1973. But detente was never a condition totally free of East-West conflicts...
...demonstrate that the Cubans had broken one of black Africa's most sacred political principles: respect for the sanctity of existing national boundaries. In a larger sense, Washington was emphasizing to both Moscow and Havana that the buildup of Soviet-Cuban influence throughout Africa must be ended if East-West détente is to be strengthened. Castro's motives in denying any involvement with the Katangese might be defensive ones: to dissociate his regime from a dubious, and worse, a failed venture...