On October 15, a Conference for the Expansion of World Trade and Employment is scheduled to meet in London, convened by the U.S. State Department as a preliminary step toward the World Conference on the same subject to be held by the United Nations next year.
Judging by the countries invited—Cuba, Brazil, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, China, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Luxembourg—this preliminary conference will exercise a decisive influence over the second.
The objective of the conference is well known, since as early as November 1945, the United States circulated proposals to the invited countries, drafted by its State Department. While I was in Havana in February 1946, these proposals were seriously and thoroughly discussed in a Round Table meeting convened by the War Economy Board, which brought together a genuine and highly intelligent representation of all sectors of national life. The goal is none other than to reduce the barriers to the expansion of international trade, particularly tariffs and customs preferences.
The first point agreed upon by the Cuban economists at that February 1946 Round Table—which I was able to follow—was that the conference holds very direct significance for Cuba, since it will discuss general measures that could deeply affect the Cuban economy. It will also address the revision of existing trade treaties among participating nations or the formation of new ones where none exist.
Regarding these general agreements, the Cuban Round Table quickly concurred that the country must prepare to avoid committing to any measures that would leave its economy vulnerable. It emphasized, for example, that Cuba needs to consolidate its export industries at the highest possible level, while also requiring a robust domestic supplementary industry to fill the gaps left by export activities in employment and national income.
The depth of this Cuban discussion, complemented by the sugar planters’ and workers’ commission that negotiated recent U.S. concessions on Cuban sugar, has already yielded another essential victory for Cuba. For a long time, Cubans have fought for a revision of the Reciprocal Trade Treaty with the United States, a treaty which, in the eyes of our Antillean brothers, has become obsolete. The Yankees, acting in their own interest, have resisted revising the treaty—since any revision would likely benefit the other party, Cuba. But the pressure of reality has forced a Cuban victory: a U.S. official delegation is now announced to visit Havana “to learn the Cuban perspective on the American proposals,” which will likely lead to opening discussions to revise the Reciprocity Treaty.
Who can doubt the immense importance of the Conference for the Expansion of World Trade and Employment, to be held in London on October 15? To erase any doubts, consider this fact: the conference aims to arrive—or attempt to arrive—at a global modus vivendi regarding markets. If agreed upon, this would last until the next war—produced by the anarchy of capitalist production—tears it apart with cannon fire.
Who can deny that in this crucial conference, a nation like Puerto Rico—so commercially important—will have no seat, no voice, no vote, and that its vast commercial interests will be entrusted to the forgetfulness of a foreign chancellery? Who can doubt, with international trade theory and long experience in mind, that in the concert of treaties in which the U.S. participates, its position will be determined solely by its national interests—and, even more so, by the direct interests of the monopolistic capital it serves?
Who can deny that Puerto Rico’s absence from that conference signifies the surrender of our commercial interests for an indefinite period—until another collision of international contradictions provides the war opportunity that Puerto Rico just foolishly wasted?
Who, unless a fool or a traitor, could deny that the right to independence—hard-earned—is the only tool that would enable us to attend London in October and defend, with all the force with which one defends what is one’s own, our people’s commercial interests?
But we are not independent. We are still a nation under intervention by an invading power. A nation whose economy has been twisted by this imperialist intervention to the point of becoming unmistakably colonial in nature. A people whose so-called “formal education” has warped the character and twisted the intelligence of its supposed leaders to the extent that they either ignore the nation’s most basic needs or, when they do recognize them, refuse to fight bravely to defend them.
Thus, we are both a nation under intervention and a colony by de facto acceptance of that intervention—lacking international personhood, political unity, and legal independence—preventing us from participating as equals in the community of free nations.
It would be different if, instead of a colonized nation, we were independent. Then we would have international standing—political unity and legal independence—to go anywhere and defend our interests.
Let us now specifically analyze the London Conference. Let’s imagine, for a moment, that the Puerto Rican leaders who have spoken of “decolonizing” the Puerto Rican economy had first begun by decolonizing themselves. Had they done so, they would have grasped the enormous opportunity the recently ended war presented for Puerto Rico. They would have fully understood that U.S. needs meant Puerto Rican opportunities. That the most elementary and genuine interest of a Puerto Rican leader must be the Puerto Rican good—all else is secondary.
The essential trait of a true statesman is the ability to harmonize national good with international good—and if such harmony becomes impossible due to inherent international contradictions, the true statesman guides his people down a difficult but skillful path that avoids aligning with the forces of international evil without falling with the defeated.
In the last war, Puerto Rico had a clear outlook. The victory of the Axis powers—Rome-Berlin-Tokyo—would have meant a world order based exclusively on brute force, making independence impossible for all small nations, including our own. The German conquest of France gave Hitler control over Europe and forced on him a need for global domination to secure raw materials and markets. That fatal necessity led to his own defeat, as global interests aligned to crush him. When Hitler turned on Russia, the Soviet victory at Stalingrad changed the course of the war, leading to the Tehran Conference and the final defeat of Nazism.
Puerto Rican interests, therefore, aligned with the global good. Our place was with the United Nations. But one obstacle remained: we were under the intervention of one of the United Nations—the United States.
Wars aren’t fought with cannon fire alone. The army needs cannons—and flags. The U.S. Army, to fight the Axis, needed to hoist the flag of democracy—even if it was only the weak, contradictory bourgeois democracy. It needed the banner of defending small nations. Could the U.S., mid-war, posing as the champion of democracy and small nations, deny the justified, dignified, reasoned, and courageous demand for independence by Puerto Rico?
The steps taken independently by the U.S. government toward Puerto Rican leaders and Latin American countries show that it could not. Reason says: No.
Puerto Ricans should have said: We will participate in the war on the side of the United Nations, as one of them, under our own national flag. The essential prerequisite was the recognition of our national sovereignty.
That the Puerto Rican people were ready to support this is evident from the widespread independentista sentiment during the war—even among enlisted soldiers. It wasn’t the people who failed. It was the leadership. The historical opportunity to demand our independence existed. What failed were the men—those who make history—who should have channeled the moment to its logical conclusion.
But let’s imagine they didn’t fail. Let’s suppose the chosen path was correct. Then Puerto Rico would have negotiated a Reciprocal Trade Treaty with the United States.
What is a reciprocal treaty?
Under this system, two independent countries agree, through treaty, to trade specified goods of equal value with each other. Exports and imports between them balance out. Goods traded under this agreement enter duty-free. Each nation still retains the right to impose tariffs on foreign goods not covered in the agreement or those that compete with domestic products.
For example, an independent Puerto Rico might export sugar, rum, tobacco, etc., to the U.S. valued at $130 million. In exchange, it would import rice, wheat, cars, machinery, etc., from the U.S. for the same value—all tariff-free. But Puerto Rico could still buy extra rice elsewhere if needed, without losing its U.S. trade benefits.
This allows Puerto Rico to secure free access to the U.S. market for its exports without giving up control over protecting local industries. As industrialization and population grow, additional capital would be mobilized, increasing the total volume of trade—and the freedom to buy in the most advantageous world markets.
Such a treaty could already be in force if Puerto Rico had patriotically used the war as an opportunity to gain independence.
We didn’t. Despite the efforts of our most loyal sons and daughters, we wasted that wartime moment. We do not enjoy the benefits of such a treaty. We cannot now reap the international advantages the London Conference might have offered Puerto Rican commerce.
We no longer have time to reach the London Conference. But we do have time to reach the UN conference on the same subject at the end of 1947.
To get there, two options exist:
Either Puerto Rican leaders—those with true popular support—demand recognition of our independence,
Or the people themselves organize to force them out of the way and pursue national destiny and self-interest.
Do favorable international conditions still exist for recognizing our independence? Has a new opportunity, after the war, arisen?
I believe so. The postwar moment is that opportunity. But I will address those circumstances in the next article.