File No. 612.119/1038
The Ambassador in Mexico ( Fletcher ) to the Secretary of State
828. The following note just received from the Minister for Foreign Affairs:
By order of the President of the Republic I have the honor to state to your excellency that the Government of Mexico considers inacceptable the result of the conversations which were held in Washington between Engineer Ignacio Bonillas, Ambassador of Mexico, and Mr. Rafael Nieto, Undersecretary of Treasury, and the officials of the American Government, for the purpose of normalizing trade intercourse between Mexico and the United States.
Having confidence, however, in your excellency’s statement in our last interview that your excellency is well disposed to continue the negotiations on the subject, and with a view to reaching a satisfactory agreement, I am pleased to communicate to your excellency the basis which the Government of Mexico considers most equitable for arriving at a definite result and which make manifest once more the Mexican Government’s disposition to discuss and agree to everything which may result to the benefit of both nations.
The Government of Mexico desires in the first place that the Government of the United States inspired by the principle of international reciprocity should permit the importation from the United States to Mexico of the merchandise its necessities require, in the same manner as the Government of Mexico permits the forwarding without restrictions to the United States of the greater part of its export products.
However, not desiring to impose any sacrifice on the United States, the Government of Mexico is agreeable that temporarily and transitorily quantities be fixed previously of the articles which may not exist in abundant quantities in the United States or of those which may be indispensables for its own requirements.
The articles of which the exportation from the United States is prohibited and which Mexico needs are the following: corn, wheat and wheat flour, cotton fiber, cottonseed, machinery of all kinds, iron and steel manufactures, machinery and material for railways, articles for the operation of mines, especially cyanide, dynamite caps and fuses, smelter coke, newsprint paper, common soap, jute sacks, barley, electrolytic copper in wire and cables, zinc ingots and sheets, ferromanganese, ammonia, and arms and war material for the army. The Government of Mexico desires further that the American Government shall permit towns on the boundary with the United States to import food products required for their own use, and lastly that permission be given for importation from the United States to Mexico of metallic gold in sufficient quantity to cover the commercial balances which may result in Mexico’s favor.
Please await my 831.