Cutting Off Trade to Spite Our Face : U.S. Interest Suffers Each Time We Prove Ourselves Unreliable

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.), commenting the other day on the efficacy of American trade embargoes on countries that we don’t like, said that “we should not impose embargoes unless the target country is hurt worse than the United States is.”

Bentsen was referring specifically to the U.S. embargo on the sale of oil-drilling equipment to the Soviet Union--an embargo that he said cost Texas alone more than 4,000 jobs and more than $1 billion in exports but was ineffective because the Soviets simply turned to other suppliers.

His words are equally applicable to President Reagan’s imposition of economic sanctions on Libya. Thanks to the unwillingness of Europeans to join in the boycott, the shutting down of American trade and financial relations with Libya stands to hurt U.S. interests more than it inconveniences the terrorists or Moammar Kadafi, their megalomaniacal patron.

The costs must be measured not only in lost business with Libya, which we are appropriately willing to do without, but also in potential damage to much more important trade and financial ties with other Third World countries--some of which despise Kadafi more than we do.

The point is not that Reagan was misguided in his compulsion to act against scum who deliberately maim and murder women and children in the pursuit of a cause, or that his choice of means was inappropriate. The question is whether the United States should have embarked on an enterprise that was condemned to futility by the spineless attitude of its allies.

Keep in mind that the terrorist acts involved, the bombing and machinegunning of passengers in the Rome and Vienna air terminals, happened on European soil. Of the 19 people killed, only five were Americans.

While Americans are properly outraged, the people who should really be angry are Italians and Austrians. After all, it was their airports that were bathed in blood--small thanks for the sympathy that both have displayed for the Palestinian cause that supposedly motivates the terrorists.

The Italians and Austrians are indeed moving to prosecute the terrorists who were captured on the spot. Italy, in addition, is cutting off arms sales to Libya. Canada is taking limited economic measures. But no European government is sufficiently outraged by the murder of innocents to forgo profitable business ties.

Kadafi may or may not have had a direct hand in the Dec. 27 airport attacks. But for years he has openly applauded terrorist acts, and has gloated over the assassination of Arab leaders whom he didn’t like. Western intelligence agencies have no doubt that he has provided money, weapons and training facilities for terrorists. The Tunisian passports carried by some of the terrorists involved in the airport attacks have been traced to Libya.

Our brave allies say that economic sanctions would be ineffective. But considerable disaffection already exists in Libya as the result of the country’s festering economic problems. If the Europeans were willing to join in a tough boycott--freezing Libya’s financial assets, cutting off trade and bringing home their workers--Kadafi would indeed feel the pain. He might even find it advisable to curtail his role as banker and cheerleader for people who commit atrocities.

However, even before U.S. diplomats tried last week to deliver this message in Bonn, London, Rome and other capitals, it was obvious that the answer would be no.

So what purpose was served by nominating ourselves to lead a crusade that nobody else was prepared to join?

We do have trade interests of our own interests that cannot be rationally ignored in view of the enormous U.S. trade deficit. And those interests are injured every time we prove ourselves to be an unreliable supplier.

U.S. exporters are still suffering from the sour taste left by the trade sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to the events in Afghanistan. Foreign suppliers of nuclear reactors and fuel supplies have profited at the expense of the American nuclear industry, which is subject to greater restrictions in the name of discouraging the spread of nuclear weapons.

Commercial sacrifices of this sort are worthwhile if they accomplish something. But surely we should hesitate to inflict economic damage on ourselves unless we are reasonably sure that the results will be worthwhile.

Kadafi now talks grandly of organizing an alliance among Europeans, Africans and Arabs to rid the Mediterranean region of American influence. It’s a pipe dream. Nor should we worry much about the 45-nation Islamic Conference’s call for actions to counter the “oppressive American measures” against Libya. Several of those voting “aye” would dearly love to slit Kadafi’s throat themselves.

Hardly anybody is going to get into a shoving match with the United States to please Kadafi or prove their Muslim solidarity. But it’s worth remembering that a number of Third World countries, especially in the Arab world, have serious differences with the United States. The Libyan episode comes as an uncomfortable reminder of their own potential vulnerability to U.S. sanctions.

The United States has imposed sanctions in recent years on the Soviet Union, Poland, Cuba and Nicaragua. In 1979 Washington seized Iranian assets worth $12 billion. Now Libyan government bank deposits have been frozen and U.S. workers ordered out.

If you are an Arab or other Third World nation trying to decide whether to bring in the Americans or somebody else to build an enormously expensive mining or chemical complex, some other country may get the business precisely because it can be relied on not to pull the plug in order to make a moral or political point.

This doesn’t mean that we should forgo economic sanctions as an instrument of pressure on behalf of civilized conduct. But moral posturing that fails to produce results merely makes us look ineffectual--and leaves us with that much less leverage the next time around.