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Yugoslavia The United States
Tito cultivated positive relations with the United States to
balance Soviet influence and to receive the substantial American
economic aid that became available after his break with the
Warsaw Pact. Tension periodically resulted from Yugoslav Middle
East policy, Tito's frequent support of Soviet causes, and by
terrorist acts committed by Yugoslav emigres in the United
States. However, Tito and his successors found important issues
upon which to continue friendly relations with the United States
through the 1980s. The Yugoslav policy of nonalignment precluded
formal security treaties, but protection of Yugoslav soveignty
was internationally understood as part of United States-European
policy--especially after President Jimmy Carter made a specific
policy statement to that effect in 1978. Tension rose in 1989,
when resolutions of the United States Congress condemned Yugoslav
human rights policies and were labeled as uninformed interference
in internal Yugoslav affairs. The stimulus for this disagreement
was Yugoslav policy toward Dobroslav Paraga, an exiled Croatian
separatist who became a leader of extremist emigrés in North
America. On an official visit to the United States following that
exchange, Prime Minister Markovic explained Yugoslav reform and
human rights policies, and U.S. officials urged that Yugoslavia
follow the contemporary reform pattern of other East European
communist countries. Both sides agreed that the visit improved
the climate for U.S. financial support of economic reforms and
U.S. understanding of internal Yugoslav political conditions.
Data as of December 1990
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