Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 7, 1990 TAG: 9006070540
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
By a 390-24 vote Wednesday, the House voted to bar the sale of U.S. computers and telecommunications gear needed to modernize the Soviet economy until Moscow begins negotiating Lithuania's independence "without economic coercion."
On a voice vote, the House also agreed to ban high-tech sales to the Soviet Union if it continues to restrict Jewish emigration.
"While the Soviet president put out one hand in requesting aid from the United States, the other hand is wrapped tightly around the neck of Lithuania," said Rep. William Broomfield of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Rep. Mel Levine, D-Calif., who sought the Jewish emigration provision, said Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had "played into the hands of Arab extremists" in remarks at a news conference ending last week's superpower summit.
Gorbachev said he was under pressure from Egypt and Syria to start denying exit visas to Soviet Jews if Israel continues to allow them to settle in Israeli-occupied territories on the West Bank.
Meanwhile Wednesday, the United States and the Soviet Union signed another agreement on sharing food-processing information, particularly how U.S. technology and methods can be incorporated by the Soviets.
And Yuri Chumakov, the deputy Soviet minister of foreign economic relations, told a gathering of U.S. businessmen that his country will be looking for U.S. loans under a new tentative trade agreement.
"The United States is our greatest food supplier [and] we have been paying with cash," Chumakov said. "We have the right to expect in this hard period to receive certain credits in order to withstand the pressure."
The House votes on amendments to an administration-opposed bill easing controls on high-tech U.S. exports was the first congressional reaction to the trade accord signed by Bush and Gorbachev last Friday.
Moscow is particularly interested in acquiring U.S. telecommunications and computer technology. During last week's summit, for example, the Soviets signed an agreement with International Business Machines Corp. to buy school computers.
The Bush-Gorbachev agreement would lower 40-year-old trade barriers between the two countries, but only upon the Supreme Soviet's approval of a law to make it easier for Soviet citizens to emigrate to or visit the West.
However, many members of Congress want to condition any change in trade relations with Moscow to its treatment of Lithuania and other breakaway movements within the faltering Soviet empire.
Since April 18, the Soviets have cut off supplies of oil, natural gas, other raw materials and medical supplies to Lithuania in response to its declaration of independence a month earlier.
"Although the Soviet Union is moving toward peace and openness, it is not quite there," said Rep. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the author of the measure to forbid high-tech sales to Moscow. "The Iron Curtain is still present when it comes to Lithuania and other Baltic countries."
Through other amendments, House members also expressed dissatisfaction with Bush's decision last month to continue Most Favored Nation trade status to China despite the government's violent reaction to the Tiananmen Square uprising a year ago.
On a 393-15 vote, the House approved an amendment by Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-N.Y., that would forbid Bush from approving any more exports of U.S.-built or U.S.-owned satellites to China. The amendment would not affect the export of three such satellites approved last December by Bush.
All of the votes were on amendments to a bill reauthorizing U.S. participation in the 17-nation Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Security Controls, which determines which Western high-tech goods are too militarily sensitive to be sold to potential enemies.
The overall bill passed 312-86 despite administration veto threats. Similar legislation is pending in the Senate Banking Committee.
"The thrust of the bill is that business is more important than national security," said Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. "There are military and intelligence aspects to some of these telecommunications exports. We're crazy to hand that stuff to the Soviet Union."
Supporters, however, maintained that "cold warrior" attitudes should no longer dominate U.S. export policies.
Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said: "We should accept our victory. Eastern Europeans are going to spend upwards of $140 billion in the next decade on telecommunications and we should get a chunk of it."
Rep. Bill Frenzel, R-Minn., cited a study by the National Academy of Sciences estimating that the existing controls denied U.S. companies $9.2 billion in exports in 1987 "with no perceptible increase in national security."
The bill basically eases export controls on telecommunications equipment, computers and machine tools to the newly democratizing countries of Eastern Europe and, to a lesser extent, the Soviets.
U.S. manufacturers have repeatedly complained that the U.S. export controls are effectively shutting out their participation in Eastern Europe's developing economy while Japan, West Germany and South Korea establish toeholds in it.
by CNB