Vernon points out in Sovereignty At Bay, an often overlooked incentive for the Marshall Plan, and recovery aid, first to Europe, and then later ideological Cold War aid to anyone in the non communist world:
that was the need, going back to the late 20s and 30s, of Southern agricultural interests (read Southern Democrats at that time) to recover export markets for agricultural products, traditionally cotton, tobacco, and grains and beans, and apparently, apples.
This was not the first time that these interests supported a free trade atmosphere in Washington, an atmosphere it may be recalled, which gradually clashed increasingly during the 19th Century with Northern manufacturing economic nationalist and protectionist interests (if not banking interests), and eventually lead up to the rift of the Civil War.
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