The next most pressing concern of the alliance is our common economic goals of trade and growth.  This Nation continues to be concerned about its balance-of-payments deficit, which, despite its decline, remains a stubborn and troublesome problem.  We believe, moreover, that closer economic ties among all free nations are essential to prosperity and peace.  And neither we nor the members of the European Common Market are so affluent that we can long afford to shelter high cost farms or factories from the winds of foreign competition, or to restrict the channels of trade with other nations of the free world.  If the Common Market should move toward protectionism and restrictionism, it would undermine its own basic principles.  This Government means to use the authority conferred on it last year by the Congress to encourage trade expansion on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world.

V.

Second, what of the developing and non-aligned nations?  They were shocked by the Soviets’ sudden and secret attempt to transform Cuba into a nuclear striking base—­and by Communist China’s arrogant invasion of India.  They have been reassured by our prompt assistance to India, by our support through the United Nations of the Congo’s unification, by our patient search for disarmament, and by the improvement in our treatment of citizens and visitors whose skins do not happen to be white.  And as the older colonialism recedes, and the neo-colonialism of the Communist powers stands out more starkly than ever, they realize more clearly that the issue in the world struggle is not communism versus capitalism, but coercion versus free choice.

They are beginning to realize that the longing for independence is the same the world over, whether it is the independence of West Berlin or Viet-Nam.  They are beginning to realize that such independence runs athwart all Communist ambitions but is in keeping with our own—­and that our approach to their diverse needs is resilient and resourceful, while the Communists are still relying on ancient doctrines and dogmas.

Nevertheless it is hard for any nation to focus on an external or subversive threat to its independence when its energies are drained in daily combat with the forces of poverty and despair.  It makes little sense for us to assail, in speeches and resolutions, the horrors of communism, to spend $50 billion a year to prevent its military advance—­and then to begrudge spending, largely on American products, less than one-tenth of that amount to help other nations strengthen their independence and cure the social chaos in which communism has always thrived.

I am proud—­and I think most Americans are proud—­of a mutual defense and assistance program, evolved with bipartisan support in three administrations, which has, with all its recognized problems, contributed to the fact that not a single one of the nearly fifty U.N. members to gain independence since the Second World War has succumbed to Communist control.