Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration crisis and stated that the Soviet Union "runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens." This was before Gorbachev rose to power in 1985. Reagan later wrote in his autobiography "An American Life" that he "did not see the profound changes that would occur in the Soviet Union after Gorbachev rose to power." To confront the Soviet Union's serious economic problems, Gorbachev implemented bold new policies for freedom and openness called glasnost and perestroika. Reagan relaxed his aggressive rhetoric toward the Soviet Union after Gorbachev became chairman of the Soviet Politburo in
Foreign trade of the Soviet Union from these countries was resold to the West for hard currency. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union attempted to increase its exports of nonmilitary goods to these countries. In May 1986, the Soviet Union and Iraq agreed to increase Soviet nonmilitary equipment sales, and in August 1986 an attempt was made to revive Iraqi gas sales. When Mikhail Gorbachev delivered his report on the CPSU's economic policy on June 12, 1985, he noted that growth in exports, particularly machinery and equipment, was slow because the poor quality of Soviet goods prohibited them from being competitive on the world market.