Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 7, 1911

File No. 611.3231/210.

The Argentine Minister to the Secretary of State.

[Translation.]

Argentine Legation,
Washington, June 9, 1911.

memorandum.

In connection with the aide-memoire that the Department of State forwarded to the Argentine Legation on May 23 last,¹ the Argentine Government has apprised its minister at Washington that “the Congress, supported by the press of best standing, believes that the menace placed upon the exportation of Argentine flour by the advantages gained by the Government of the United States of America for its flour imported into Brazil has brought occasion for the Argentine Government to defend itself by increasing the import duties on petroleum, lumber, and other staples of American imports.” This opinion is shared by the Argentine commercial institutions commanding the wider influence and moral authority, such as the Chamber of the Bourse of Commerce of Buenos Aires, a copy in extenso of whose opinion I had the pleasure to offer confidentially to the Department of State. It is deemed possible that the Government of the United States may renew its demands and succeed in having the bonus raised to 40 or 50 per cent, which would create an insuperable barrier to Argentine exportation. The Argentine Government, which is, now as always, most keenly interested in eliminating any cause of dissent or misunderstanding that could mar the profound sympathy and close friendship which bind the people and the Government of the United States of America to the people and Government of the Argentine Republic, and to the strengthening of which it has avowedly and repeatedly devoted its best efforts, desires to check the “retaliations contemplated by the Congress,” and to that end it must receive the assurance that the Government of the United States of America stands definitely satisfied with the present preferential reduction enjoyed by its flour imported into Brazil and would duly appreciate a formal declaration of the Government of the United States of America to the effect that it has no thought of endeavoring to obtain greater concessions.

In the confidential conversations he had the honor to have with the Secretary of State yesterday morning the Argentine minister made the statement set forth in the present memorandum, which he has taken pleasure in writing in compliance with the suggestion that the Secretary was pleased to make.

1. Not printed. See 611.3231/209a.