Strategic Material Control And American Tin Diplomacy In The Early Post-war Period(1945-1962)

Mineral tin is an essential material for the development of modern industry,which is vital to the national and economic security of the United States.However,the United States does not produce tin domestically,so it has to rely heavily on foreign imports.After the outbreak of World War II,the United States formally established a strategic material reserve system,and tin was included in the list of strategic materials,thus the United States started the process of purchasing and reserving tin on a global scale.With the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War,the US government not only imposed tin control and embargo on Soviet eastern bloc,but also actively expanded strategic tin reserves to avoid repeating the mistake of tin source cut off during World War II.The United States has strengthened domestic legislation on strategic materials reserve,and successively promulgated the Strategic and Critical Materials Stockpiling Act,the Defense Production Act,the Agricultural Development and Assistance Act,etc.,to provide legal guarantee for strategic tin reserve.Internationally,it conducts global tin diplomacy,actively conducts bilateral trade negotiations with tin-producing countries,and tries to control international multilateral tin organizations to ensure relatively stable tin prices and sufficient strategic tin reserve sources.Specifically,the United States requires tin-producing countries to implement trade embargo and control to prevent important strategic materials from being transported to eastern bloc by signing tin ore supply contracts and economic assistance.Through its political and economic advantages and huge strategic tin reserves,the United States selectively intervened in the normal operation of international multilateral tin organizations,disrupting tin pricing.However,tin-producing countries also took advantage of America’s concerns about the expansion of communist forces,and repeatedly bargained with America on the length and price of signing tin agreements.In fact,the contest between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War actually included a mineral resources war,which was manifested as the intervention in the global strategic resource distribution belt and its regional political and economic forces.In 1962,the US tin reserve reached 361,000 tons,exceeding the inventory target of 161,000 tons.The General Administration of General Affairs decided to sell the surplus tin to the outside world,which announced that the United States had achieved important results in the strategic tin reserve policy.American tin diplomacy reflects the unique role of strategic mineral resources in the formation of American foreign policy.Through mineral diplomacy,the United States can effectively supply strategic resources and safeguard the national strategic interests of the United States.In this process,on the one hand,the United States lowered the international price of tin at the expense of the interests of major tin-producing countries,and tin also became an intervention means for the United States to intervene in the politics,economy and national sovereignty of tin-producing countries.At the same time,the U.S.embargo on tin in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has also led to the international tin price,the normal flow of tin and the disorder of trade,which has brought instability to the normal production of these countries.In fact,the large amount of reserves in the United States caused a waste of resources,and eventually it gave up its own tin reserves.Therefore,the policies and objectives of strategic material reserve must be determined according to the actual situation,and change in time to maintain the relative balance of national development.