611.3231/422: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Brazil (Morgan)
2. Your telegram number 136, dated December 26, 1922, 4 p.m.
(1) Please inform the Government of Brazil that the Government of the United States will not ask that preferences granted by Brazil be renewed.
You will state that this Government is committed to general principle of most-favored-nation treatment; that it makes an exception of the special reciprocal arrangement with the Government of Cuba for the reason that because of geographical situation, peculiar economic ties and treaty relations with that Government, special relations with it are not a deviation from and are not inconsistent with that principle; that the Government of Brazil is requested to make formal announcement that it will accord most-favored-nation treatment to the commerce of the United States; and that this Government contemplates proposing to Brazil the negotiation of a commercial treaty in order to place commercial relations upon a most-favored-nation basis.
(2) In view of the existing preferences to Belgium, most-favored-nation treatment accorded the commerce of the United States would mean treatment equal to that which is now or at any time hereafter accorded to Belgium or to any other most-favored nation. If Brazil should renew voluntarily the present preferences without suggestion on your part, they would be accepted, but the Department does not consider that any suggestion of or request for them would be consistent with the policy that is embodied in section 317 of the recently enacted tariff act; and further, it considers that in the long run this policy offers larger advantages of amity and trade.
(3) You will telegraph developments.