American Private Investment Abroad

Report Outline
Calls for Greater Outflow of U.S. Capital
Record of American Investment Abroad
Means of Promoting Foreign Investment
Special Focus

Calls for Greater Outflow of U.S. Capital

President on Need to Encourage Foreign Investment

President Eisenhower said in his State of the Union message, Feb. 2, that the foreign economic policy of the United States should include “doing whatever government properly can to encourage the flow of private American investment capital abroad.” He added that “This involves, as a serious and explicit purpose of our foreign policy, the encouragement of a hospitable climate for such investment in foreign nations.” It may involve also, though the President did not so specify, the provision of certain guarantees and positive incentives to cut risks and increase profit possibilities for American corporations and individuals exporting their capital.

A Senate resolution, offered Jan. 7 by Sen. Capehart, new Republican chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee, would authorize the committee to make “a thorough study of means and methods for … increasing American investment abroad and expanding international trade.” When Capehart introduced the resolution, he said he proposed “to hold hearings on the broad subject of how we can best get such a program of trade and foreign investment under way.” Then the Banking and Currency Committee would recommend a program of action to the Senate and to other committees that might have jurisdiction over legislation to carry out some phases of the program.

Former Banking and Currency Chairman Maybank said he was confident the committee could “discover and develop ways of improving the climate for increased foreign investment, ways and means by which the Export-Import Bank and the International Bank can increase [their] activities, and possibly develop … some form of investment guarantee system or tax measures for the stimulation of private investment abroad.”