File No. 611.3731/13.
The Secretary of State to the American Minister.
The Secretary answers the minister’s dispatch 626 of February 14 and says that if Cuba should adhere to the Brussels Convention of 1902 the Department assumes that she will not extend the preferential tariff rates on sugar to the European signatory powers, even if they invoke Article V of the Brussels Convention. The minister will so inform the Cuban Government, and will add that, in other words, the Government of the United States will insist that the reciprocity reduction in favor of United States sugars imported into Cuba shall remain preferential and not be extended to sugars from any third country. With this reservation the United States makes no objection to adherence by Cuba to the Brussels Convention.