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Show JY. Africa Offers Chance for Development of Brisk Trade to U. S. Commercial Interests Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, where American G.I.s began their Victory march in 1942-43, are' expected ex-pected for several reasons to loom larger in American post-war foreign trade. Before the present war French North African trade was part and parcel of French economy, and the mother country cornered the lion's share, says the National Geographic society. Recent studies of French Industrial In-dustrial production in the light of war damage, however, indicate that the bulk of North African needs for the remainder of 1945, 1948 and probably 1947 will have to come from the United States. In the next six months, North Africa, bled by two years of Axis exploitation, ex-ploitation, will require imports, exclusive ex-clusive of wheat shipments, estimated esti-mated at more than $100,000,000. The "Maghreb," as the Arabs call French North Africa, normally en-Joys en-Joys a substantial wheat surplus, but drouth has produced four successive suc-cessive crop failures. Arrangements are in progress whereby the U, S. farmer will provide North Africa with 2,500,000 tons of wheat during the next 12 months. The French plan to pay cash for the wheat out of their limited foreign exchange reserves, re-serves, a sacrifice which emphasizes em-phasizes the importance they attach to keeping these restive lands well fed. French North Africa has been called "a museum of minerals," a fact of Importance to the United States because this region contains many subsoil deposits lacking or near exhaustion in this country. The Maghreb yields one-third of the world's supply of phosphate. There are also important deposits of copper, cop-per, lead, zinc, manganese, antimony, anti-mony, mercury, Iron, molybdenum and coal. Vast areas of North Africa, especially Morocco, have not yet been carefully prospected, and expectations are that new deposits of some or all of these metals will add to the "museum's" store. French North Africa covers an area of over a million square miles roughly twice the area of Alaska with a population now estimated at 20,000,000 people, mostly Arabs, native Berbers, and Jews, with a small minority of 'Europeans. Geographically Geo-graphically the region is akin to the Mediterranean lands of southern south-ern Europe. The three countries are much alike in physical features, and the north-south boundaries are man-made man-made lines unmarked by ' natural barriers. All are bounded on the south by the wastes of the Sahara and on the north by the Mediterranean Mediter-ranean sea. Geography has marked North Africa into three east-west zones. Along the coast, where American marines fought the Barbary pirates 140 years ago, stretches the Tell, a belt of fertile slopes, and occasional alluvial plains, where citrus fruit, grapes, olives and cereals grow In abundance. Behind the Tell, ranges of the Atlas mountains, reaching 14,000 feet in some places, roughly parallel the Mediterranean coast. In the southern reaches of the mountains moun-tains Is a high and somewhat arid tableland, whore nomad natives tend large flocks of sheep and goats. Farther south are limitless stretches of desert and wasteland with isolated iso-lated oases, where dates are the principal product. Dry in Summer. The climate of the northernmost belt is not unlike that of southern California. There is fairly abundant rainfall along the coast and on the seaward slopes of the mountains, but little rain in the summer. No rivers of economic Importance flow through French North Africa. Normally, prewar trade between France's North African lands and the United States was comparatively comparative-ly small. From 1937 to 1939 exports to the Maghreb averaged under $8,-000,000 $8,-000,000 a year, while imports averaged aver-aged under $6,000,000. American exporters ex-porters sent chiefly tobacco and cigarettes, cig-arettes, lubricating oil and grease, refrigerators and parts, and farm machinery. Americans bought in' exchange sausage casings, skins and furs, leather goods from Morocco, olive oil (both edible and for soap), gums and aromatic oils and cork. Manganese imports from North Africa began shortly after the historic his-toric Anglo - American invasion of the region toward the end of 1842. |