611.3731/248
Memorandum by the Secretary of State of a Conversation With the Cuban Ambassador (Ferrara)
I asked the Cuban Ambassador to come in at four o’clock to discuss the matter of the revision of the commercial treaty with Cuba. The Cuban Government has sent me two notes on the subject7 and I have reported to the Cuban Ambassador that we had asked the Tariff Commission to make an investigation and report; that the first part of the investigation had been made and the Cuban Government had received [Page 507] a copy of the report; that I had been promised the complete report this month and today was told that they hoped to get it to me in a few days; that it had to be passed on by the Commission itself. I told the Ambassador that I would call up the Chairman of the Commission and urge him to expedite it but as I had promised to have an informal talk with him about the subject some time ago, I said that I would like to have him outline in a general way what his Government wanted.
He said in a general way they wanted the differential on sugar increased and his suggestion to me was to make it forty per cent, instead of twenty. Nevertheless, he said, they would like to survey the whole field of the treaty; they thought they could agree on a tariff differential on a certain amount for a limited tonnage to the United States and any above that, a less differential. I am not familiar enough with the subject to be able to say whether this would be less objectionable or not. He went on to explain that we buy sugar now at the same old price and, therefore, that the differential did not at this time benefit Cuba at all and if the differential were increased to forty per cent, a large part of it would benefit the American consumer but they would get some benefit.
I explained to him, as I had done before, the difficulties in the way of taking up any negotiations as to the sugar tariff; I doubted very much, I told him, if a treaty could be put through the Senate owing to the position of Sugar growing interests in the United States and the American possessions.
As to tobacco, he thought there ought to be some increase in the differential but did not seem to be very familiar with it.
We had quite a long talk about this subject. I told him that several other countries were pressing for the same differential, notably, Haiti, Salvador and Peru; that I had explained to them that this treaty had been made years ago in the infancy of Cuba as an independent government and we could not give them the same differential as all our treaties were made on the basis of favored nation treatment, except as to Cuba; that it seemed to me that the present treaty very much benefited Cuba in keeping out the competition of other sugar growing countries. He admitted that they would not, of course, wish to have the treaty abrogated but that their sugar industry was in a very bad way; that they were going to limit it this year to four million tons; that we took about three and one-half million tons of that amount which leaves 500,000 tons to be disposed of elsewhere. He outlined the countries in which they sell—Great Britain, Spain, Italy, France, China, Japan, all of which have sugar tariff varying in amount, some of them very high. He said if I would let him know he would arrange in a short time to make us a detailed proposition. I did not encourage him that it would be possible for us to make a treaty but I said we [Page 508] would investigate it very carefully. I also explained to him that the balance of trade was very much in his favor as shown by the annexed sheet. He said that that was not a fair indication because all the sugar was shipped in American vessels, insured in American insurance companies and the money for their plantations was very largely raised in the United States.