This is a particularly worthy contribution to the study of relations between Venezuela and the United States, because the specific subject of the book, the 1939 Reciprocal Trade Agreement between the two countries, has so far been neglected. The book is organized into eight chapters, written in a clear, coherent, scholarly style. The first four chapters lean on secondary material and focus on the mise en scène of the problem: the Venezuelan and U.S. economies and economic policy in the 1920s and ’30s. The remaining chapters carefully document the incidents, opposing interests, pressures, and controversies involved in the two years of diplomatic negotiations. The analysis shows a meticulous treatment of the sources, which come mainly from the United States National Archives and the Archivo del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Venezuela. Official publications and newspapers were also used.
The book covers the Venezuelan and the U.S. perspective in a balanced, sober, and fresh way. Contradicting a widespread assumption that the treaty was instrumental in advancing U.S. trade to the detriment of Venezuelan interests, the authors show that the final tariff agreement reflected the Venezuelan rather than the U.S. stand, with one important exception. The petroleum clauses did not mark a diplomatic success for Venezuela as is often thought; they were included at the insistence of the U.S. government.
Focusing exclusively on the 1920s and ’30s, the authors omit any reference to the reciprocal treaties signed in 1836 and 1860, implying that the 1939 agreement was the first one. Additionally, their view that the López Contreras commercial policy was protectionist and nationalistic, a rupture with the traditional commitment to free trade, is disproved by the facts. Up to the years of petroleum production, customs duties were the major source of internal revenues and the main guarantee of the public debt, internal and external. Import taxes also fulfilled a protectionist purpose, of which there are many examples, and even liberal leaders, such as Antonio Guzmán Blanco, publicly opposed free trade. Other possible criticisms concern, for example, the inconsistency between ideas and figures in the section on “The Extraordinary Expansion of Importation during the Period 1920-39.”
The book would have been enhanced by a more detailed analysis of issues such as the insistence on excluding oil from the treaty, so that Venezuela could achieve a trade balance based on agriculture (even though oil revenues already contributed more than one-third of public revenues). Scant consideration is also given to Venezuela’s fears of U.S. retaliation if it refused to sign the treaty. This book contributes enormously to our understanding of Latin American contemporary history, and, as the excellent prologue by Carlos Guerón states, it should be a stimulus to further research.
