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