File No. 611.3731/21.
The Secretary of State to the American Minister.
In response to the minister’s dispatches 679 and 685, the Secretary says that the Department of State has no power to waive the American tariff preference on sugar or any other article included in the treaty with Cuba. Such waiver would be a partial abrogation of that treaty, which would require the concurrence of the legislative branch of the Government.
In regard to the minister’s suggestion that the entire duty be removed from sugar, it raises difficulties involved in a case pending in the Supreme Court of the United States; the Department therefore considers it an inappropriate time for discussing the subject.