The Russians want to buy American wheat and American farmers want to sell their wheat. If we believe in a free market shouldn't our farmers be allowed to sell their produce anywhere in the world for the best price they can get. To not allow this is to subsidize and make available to our own consumers low priced food at the expense of our own farmers.
Not inconsistent with that philosophy however is our own interest in the matter of national security. If we believe the Soviet Union is hostile to the free world and we must or we wouldn't be maintaining a nuclear defense and continuing in NATO then are we not adding to our own danger by helping the troubled Soviet economy?
But isn't there also a moral issue? Are we not helping a Godless tyranny maintain its hold on millions of helpless people? Wouldn't those helpless victims have a better chance of becoming free if their slave masters regime collapsed economically? One thing is certain, the threat of hunger to the Russian people is due to the Soviet obsession with military power.
The Wheat deal is beneficial to us economically. Right now in our time of economic dislocation and imbalance of trade maybe it benefits us enough to outweigh the strategic factor. In other words it strengthens us more than we'd be benefited by weakening them. But the moral question in the long run won't go away. The Soviet Union is an aggressor and a threat to world peace. It can remain so only by denying its people freedom and basic commodities that make life worth living which we take for granted.
The Russians have told us over and over again their goal is to impose their incompetent and ridiculous system on the world. We invest in armaments to hold them off, but what do we envision as the eventual outcome? Either that they will see the fallacy of their way and give up their goal or their system will collapse or we'll have to use our weapons one day.
Maybe there is an answer. We simply do what's morally right. Stop doing business with them. Let their system collapse, but in the meantime buy our farmers wheat ourselves and have it on hand to feed the Russian people when they finally become free.