U. S. v. Italy

Last week Benito Mussolini kept the Allies in a dither, the Italian people in a lather. While he took his time about leading up to Fascism's grand climax, war, his purchasing agents in the U. S. operated more feverishly, less obtrusively. Their job was to move as much strategic material as possible out of the U. S. before Italy is branded a legal belligerent and a moral foe. They did pretty well.

Mussolini had long been a leading beneficiary of the well-known schizophrenia afflicting U. S. foreign-trade policy; while trying to throttle exports to totalitarian States, Washington has simultaneously tried to stimulate crop exports too. To serve the latter purpose, the U. S. Export-Import Bank gave Italy a credit of $1,567,022 last June, which enabled her to double her cotton purchases here in the first six months of war. It also freed enough Italian cash to buy other things. From last September through February, U. S. shipments to Italy totaled $43,686,000, 54% more than in the corresponding months a year earlier. Against this six-month average of $7,281,000, Italy's March takings came to $9,634,000. April was also above $9,000,000. Italy drew heavily on the U. S. for copper (up 45% for the first six months of the war) and scrap iron. But her purchases of oil were another matter. Allied optimists have counted on Italy's being short of oil, hoped she would prove a drain on Germany if she joined up. In 1938 Italy bought 6,750,552 bbl. of U. S. crude; in 1939, 4,984,809. But in the first four months of 1940 her imports slacked off to 1,330,140 bbl., a rate of less than 4,000,000 bbl. a year. Nevertheless, she was getting lots of oil. Her new source: Mexico, which in the first 20 weeks of this year was fueling her at the yearly rate of 5,943,600 bbl., up 1,874% from 1938.

When Hitler attacked the Low Countries, U. S.-Italian trade almost got the biggest boost yet--on U. S. initiative. Ambassador to Italy William Phillips, on orders from the White House, offered Mussolini a desperate bribe to stay out of the war: a treaty of friendship, a trade agreement, new credits. Such appeasement must have flattered Il Duce. Nevertheless, Il Duce refused. Meanwhile parallel British appeasement feelers, equally fruitless, resulted in a temporary easing of contraband inspection of Italian vessels passing Gibraltar. Last week Italy made hay while the sun still shone.

Although many a U. S. steel mill, preparing for armament orders, was in the market for scrap steel, Mussolini's agents managed to place orders for no less than 250,000 tons--the equivalent of about seven months' purchases at the rate of the last two years. Trade authorities agreed this amount was above Italy's normal needs (200,000 tons a year), was obviously headed for her (or Germany's) war chest. Steel men recalled that National Steel Corp.'s Ernest Tener Weir, in behalf of the industry, had two weeks ago demanded that exports of U. S. scrap be limited. Such regulations need not hurt the Allies, who buy mostly finished steel and steel products, but to impose it now would be about as useful as locking a barn door ex post facto.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.