U.S. Agricultural Trade and Balance of Payments with OECD Countries

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is comprised of the 6 member countries of the European Economic Community (EEC); the 7 member countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA); 7 other member countries including Canada and the United States; and 3 special status countries -- Finland, Japan, and Yugoslavia. These countries, as a group, represent the most important overseas markets for U.S. agricultural products and nonagricultural goods. In recent years markets in these countries took more than half the total value of this Nation's exports of both agricultural and nonagricultural goods. While agricultural exports to OECD countries represented about 15 percent of total U.S. merchandise exports ($20.5 billion in 1962), the absence of any comparable magnitude of agricultural imports from these countries results in a most favorable U.S. agricultural trade balance with the area. In each of the years 1960, 1961 and 1962, net earnings on agricultural trade with OECD countries totaled around $ 2.0 billion and represented two-thirds of total net earnings from all merchandise trade with this group of countries. The importance of the OECD markets for U.S. agricultural products emphasizes the need for continued access to these markets as one means of improving the U.S. balance of payments. The OECD, as an organizational unit, is an important forum where trade and payments problems can be discussed and corrective policies coordinated among the world's leading trading nations.