11 February 1997
Dow Jones Telerate Energy Service
Michael Rieke

Conoco CEO: U.S. Needs Alternatives To Unilateral Sanctions

HOUSTON (Dow Jones)--The United States needs to find alternatives to unilateral trade sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy, the president and chief executive officer of Conoco Inc. said Tuesday.

Unilateral sanctions, like those the U.S. has in force against Iran, do more harm than good, Archie Dunham told an audience at a Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference here.

Such sanctions prevent U.S. companies from doing business in a country, while allowing competing foreign companies to gain competitive advantages in investment and growth opportunities, he said.

Dunham pointed to unilateral sanctions that President Richard Nixon once imposed, preventing sales of U.S. soy beans to Japan. The Japanese responded by investing $1 billion to help Brazil start growing soy beans. Brazil is now the biggest competitor to the U.S. in the soy bean market.

Instead of unilateral sanctions, he suggested multilateral sanctions, where a number of countries agree to trade sanctions against another country. The multilateral United Nations sanctions against Iraq have been effective because so many countries support them, he said.

When the United States puts unilateral sanctions in place, it prevents the kind of dialogue that results in improved foreign relations, he said. 'When countries can't talk to each other, they can't solve problems.'

Dunham said he expressed his views last week to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. He said he brought up the work done by Conoco and other companies in Russia since the break up of the Soviet Union. That work has helped advance the cause of democracy and capitalism in that country, he said.

Because of the presidential and Congressional elections last year, it was difficult to discuss alternatives to unilateral trade sanctions, Dunham said. During election years, politicians make unilateral sanctions an emotional issue and use them as flag-waving opportunities.

Now that elections are over for a couple of years, he said he hopes Washington can make some progress to develop alternatives to unilateral santions.

The idea has allies in the State Department and in the Commerce Department, as well as in the Senate and the House of Representatives, he said.

(Copyright (c) 1997, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

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