Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1994. [Vol. 2.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 22)

STUDIES - Tamás Magyarics: The (Re) creation of the Relations between the US and the Successor States in Central Europe after the First World War

they did not engage in cooperation in commercial policies but chose economic isolation by adopting high tariffs.

1 As compared to the pre-World War I years, the most striking phenomenon in the 1920s was the increase of the amount of English and American capital invested in Central Europe. In addition to foreign capital, the countries in the area were dependent on agricultural product (Austria and Chechoslovakia), on industrial raw materials (Hungary and Poland); while in the south Yugoslavia and Rumania were dependent on foreign capital to a large extent. In general, in the Central European countries "foreign capital had a 50 % or 70 % share in financing the economy during the postwar years."

2 These countries formed a link in the chain of international financial relations. Their place in the investment and credit system arose out of the redistribution of territory, spheres of interest, and economic forces after the war. The shift of interest towards them was also connected with the loss of the Russian market after 1917. Moreover, both the Wilson and the Harding administrations believed that German investments seized by the Allies in Europe as well as the preferential trading agreements they had imposed upon the weaker nations were among the means of repayment for their wartime expenses. Hie region was taken into account in the American thinking only as an economic entity, France was left alone here to settle the political questions, while the U. S. and Great Britain resorted mainly to the indirect means of influencing the proceedings in Central Europe. The reason why the U.S. was not able to carry out her political goals in the area stemmed from the discrepancy between her direct interest in establishment of stable economic conditions in Central Europe and the inadequate means the country was willing to use. The subsequent American administrations in this period do not seem to have had any coherent plan for 1 As Iván T. Berend and György Ránki have pointed out, the postwar tariffs put into effect in the 1920s in Central Europe differed from the prewar ones in "two main respects: a great increase in the number of items taxed ... and much higher duties." Berend and Ránki, East Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Budapest: Akadémiai, 1977) 90. 9 .... . , This question is discussed in details by Berend, Iván T. and Ránki, György, Economic Development in East-Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries (New York and London: Columbia UP, 1974) 149. 78