[114]

Foreign policy
Ford meets with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to sign a joint communiqué on the SALT treaty during the Vladivostok Summit, November 1974.
Ford continued the détente policy with both the Soviet Union and China, easing the tensions of the Cold War. Still in place from the Nixon administration was the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT).[115] The thawing relationship brought about by Nixon's visit to China was reinforced by Ford's own visit in December 1975.[116] The Administration entered into the Helsinki Accords[117] with the Soviet Union in 1975, creating the framework of the Helsinki Watch, an independent non-governmental organization created to monitor compliance which later evolved into Human Rights Watch.[118]
Ford attended the inaugural meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations (initially the G5) in 1975 and secured membership for Canada. Ford supported international solutions to issues. "We live in an interdependent world and, therefore, must work together to resolve common economic problems," he said in a 1974 speech.