Our country has come through a painful period of trial and disillusionment
since the victory of 1945. We anticipated a world of peace and cooperation.
The calculated pressures of aggressive communism have forced us, instead,
to live in a world of turmoil.
From this costly experience we have learned one clear lesson. We have
learned that the free world cannot indefinitely remain in a posture of
paralyzed tension, leaving forever to the aggressor the choice of time and
place and means to cause greatest hurt to us at least cost to himself.
This administration has, therefore, begun the definition of a new, positive
foreign policy. This policy will be governed by certain fixed ideas. They
are these:
(1) Our foreign policy must be clear, consistent, and confident. This means
that it must be the product of genuine, continuous cooperation between the
executive and the legislative branches of this Government. It must be
developed and directed in the spirit of true bipartisanship.
(2) The policy we embrace must be a coherent global policy. The freedom we
cherish and defend in Europe and in the Americas is no different from the
freedom that is imperiled in Asia.
(3) Our policy, dedicated to making the free world secure, will envision
all peaceful methods and devices--except breaking faith with our friends.
We shall never acquiesce in the enslavement of any people in order to
purchase fancied gain for ourselves. I shall ask the Congress at a later
date to join in an appropriate resolution making clear that this Government
recognizes no kind of commitment contained in secret understandings of the
past with foreign governments which permit this kind of enslavement.
(4) The policy we pursue will recognize the truth that no single country,
even one so powerful as ours, can alone defend the liberty of all nations
threatened by Communist aggression from without or subversion within.
Mutual security means effective mutual cooperation. For the United States,
this means that, as a matter of common sense and national interest, we
shall give help to other nations in the measure that they strive earnestly
to do their full share of the common task. No wealth of aid could
compensate for poverty of spirit. The heart of every free nation must be
honestly dedicated to the preserving of its own independence and security.
(5) Our policy will be designed to foster the advent of practical unity in
Western Europe. The nations of that region have contributed notably to the
effort of sustaining the security of the free world. From the jungles of
Indochina and Malaya to the northern shores of Europe, they have vastly
improved their defensive strength. Where called upon to do so, they have
made costly and bitter sacrifices to hold the line of freedom.
But the problem of security demands closer cooperation among the nations of
Europe than has been known to date. Only a more closely integrated economic
and political system can provide the greatly increased economic strength
needed to maintain both necessary military readiness and respectable living
standards.
Europe's enlightened leaders have long been aware of these facts. All the
devoted work that has gone into the Schuman plan, the European Army, and
the Strasbourg Conference has testified to their vision and determination.
These achievements are the more remarkable when we realize that each of
them has marked a victory--for France and for Germany alike over the
divisions that in the past have brought such tragedy to these two great
nations and to the world.
The needed unity of Western Europe manifestly cannot be manufactured from
without; it can only be created from within. But it is right and necessary
that we encourage Europe's leaders by informing them of the high value we
place upon the earnestness of their efforts toward this goal. Real progress
will be conclusive evidence to the American people that our material
sacrifices in the cause of collective security are matched by essential
political, economic, and military accomplishments in Western Europe.
(6) Our foreign policy will recognize the importance of profitable and
equitable world trade.
A substantial beginning can and should be made by our friends themselves.
Europe, for example, is now marked by checkered areas of labor surplus and
labor shortage, of agricultural areas needing machines and industrial areas
needing food. Here and elsewhere we can hope that our friends will take the
initiative in creating broader markets and more dependable currencies, to
allow greater exchange of goods and services among themselves.
Action along these lines can create an economic environment that will
invite vital help from us.
This help includes:
First: Revising our customs regulations to remove procedural obstacles to
profitable trade. I further recommend that the Congress take the Reciprocal
Trade Agreements Act under immediate study and extend it by appropriate
legislation. This objective must not ignore legitimate safeguarding of
domestic industries, agriculture, and labor standards. In all executive
study and recommendations on this problem labor and management and farmers
alike will be earnestly consulted.
Second: Doing whatever Government properly can to encourage the flow of
private American investment abroad. This involves, as a serious and
explicit purpose of our foreign policy, the encouragement of a hospitable
climate for such investment in foreign nations.
Third: Availing ourselves of facilities overseas for the economical
production of manufactured articles which are needed for mutual defense and
which are not seriously competitive with our own normal peacetime
production.
Fourth: Receiving from the rest of the world, in equitable exchange for
what we supply, greater amounts of important raw materials which we do not
ourselves possess in adequate quantities.