This is significant in that many people assume because some US businesses profit from China they will consequently never allow the US to sever ties. This is a direct historical example of corporate profits being sabotaged in the name of harming and isolating the USSR. And I believe a reason why we should expect decoupling to only continue and grow more severe.
It’s also illustrative because many liberals like to believe Jimmy Carter was some sort of dove against war and confrontation when actions like this show he and the Democratic party that was just embracing fully neo-liberalism and purging old keynesian elements in fact were all too happy to embrace sanctions and economic warfare and antagonism.
Washington threatened to revoke military contracts if companies didn’t stop cooperating with the Soviet state, according to a newly released file
Major American corporations were heavily pressured to cut ties with the USSR during the arms race in the late 1970s, according to a declassified document published by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
Jimmy Carter, who was US president from 1977 to 1981, is known for intensifying the nuclear arms race and pushing to distance his administration from the Soviet Union. The policy decisions made during this time included postponing work on the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, freezing economic and cultural exchanges between the two countries, limiting trade and banning licenses for the sale of sophisticated technologies to the USSR.
The declassified report, which is dated June 1980 and signed by KGB head Yury Andropov, is devoted to the state of Soviet-American relations. The report cites alleged confidential statements made by a General Electric vice president, as well as the heads of US aircraft manufacturer Northrop and petroleum corporation Atlantic Richfield Company.
According to the report, the Carter administration threatened to revoke the military contracts of companies that did not cut ties with Soviet organizations. It states that representatives of many large US corporations “expressed dissatisfaction” that politics were meddling in business affairs, which they said impeded on traditional economic ties, limited the scope for business, and forced companies to miss out on profitable deals.
It’s the same gangster-ism we’ve seen from the US before. They’ve destroyed smaller companies for refusing to play ball with illegal wiretapping and electronic surveillance (Qwest telco I believe was one) and they will do it again. Many major companies have valuable contracts with the US government they can’t give up and as we’ve seen with the NVIDIA chips sanctions on China even those that don’t want to play ball and stand to make more in China than from the US government are coerced anyways.
Moreover, US business titans were hoping for change, the document stated, noting that “even the Rockefellers,” the American industrial and banking family that still owns one of the world’s largest fortunes and which heavily invested in Carter’s presidential campaign, was “beginning to get worried.”
The report claimed that some within the US State Department and Carter’s Democratic Party understood that “the business world is not happy with the unbridled escalation of tensions,” and unofficially signaled that companies should “maintain certain connections” with their Soviet counterparts.
That’s what they are trying to do with tarrifs. They are trying to make China less profitable for domestic businesses, so when the time comes to completely sever ties, it’ll be an easier pill to swallow.
We should not forget that manufacturing is not the king of capital in the US anymore. It’s corporations like Google and Facebook, which really don’t need China as much, as say Apple or General Motors.