ever since the 1971 fall from grace; this was the first line of defense of their imperial prerogatives. The list of American “initiatives” in trade is a long one. It runs from President Nixon’s 1971 import surtax to the “orderly marketing agreements” reached with South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan “voluntarily” to limit their exports of cotton and synthetic textiles (1973), with Japan to slow its automobile exports (1981), and with the EC to curb steel shipments (1982). In 1982 the Reagan administration ruptured the Atlantic alliance with an embargo on exports of turbines and other equipment by U.S.-affiliated firms in Britain, France, West Germany, and Italy to the Soviet Union for its Siberian gas pipeline to Europe, an exercise in extraterritoriality that drew an angry rejection even from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In 1983 Washington put on new sugar quotas, subsidized a large sale of wheat flour, butter, and cheese to Egypt, a French customer, to punish the EC for its tariff protection of its own farmers; increased the U.S. tariff on motorcycles tenfold; doubled duties on specialty steel and stainless steel plate; and placed restrictions on 40 categories of garments from several Asian countries including China. In 1986 the Reagan administration set new ceilings on imports of European whiskey, wine, pork, hams, chocolates, and olives to retaliate for food sales the United States allegedly lost to Spain and Portugal when they joined the EC; it also imposed a five-year tariff on Canadian cedar shingles and shakes, drawing immediate retaliation from Ottawa against American books, periodicals, and computer parts and a reminder that Canada remains the largest U.S. trading partner. In 1987 the Reagan administration slapped 100 percent tariffs on certain Japanese computers, television sets, and power tools. In the late 1980s it was taking aim at a high-tech rival, Airbus Industrie, a European consortium whose passenger jets were challenging Boeing and McDonnel Douglas in the hotly competitive international aircraft market.
Richard DuBoff in “Accumulation & Power”; pages 165 – 166