I shall focus attention, in the brief time allotted, on the role of the U.S. Government in promoting trade with the Communist countries, having in mind not the larger political and economic questions which underlie governmental action but the institutional questions arising from the fact that the entire foreign trade of Communist countries is conducted by state agencies, operating under a system of national economic planning, while the foreign trade of the United States, as that of other market economies, is conducted primarily by individual, privately owned business units operating more or less independently of government.