611.5131/627: Telegram

The Chargé in France (Whitehouse) to the Secretary of State

405. Foreign Office handed me this afternoon a note of which the following is a translation:

“The French Government having examined the aide-memoire of the Government of the United States under date of October 11, 1927,98 is happy to find therein concrete propositions inspired by a desire to give satisfaction to the interests of the two countries in conformity with their respective legislation.

It appears, however, that on three important points the Government of the United States has perhaps not taken sufficiently into account the legal conditions which limit the initiative of the French Government.

1.
Under the law of 1892, as well as that of 1919, it is not possible for the French Government, even as a provisional measure, immediately to grant without correlative advantages the benefit of the French minimum tariff to American products which, prior to the tariff measures of August 30th, did not benefit by these rates. By virtue of the above-mentioned laws, the French Government cannot grant, prior to negotiation, a regime which in itself must be the result of a negotiation and an agreement.
2.
The French Government must likewise, and because of the same legal obstacles, subordinate the conclusion of a definitive commercial treaty between the two countries to the conclusion and results of the investigations which it desires to see undertaken according to the procedure envisaged in article 315 of the American tariff law and of the modifications which it hopes to see made to certain regulations of the United States, for it is because of and in proportion to the new facilities which these investigations and modus vivendi will bring to French commerce that France will be able, as she hopes, to give to the United States commerce on the French market the more extensive facilities which result from the broader application of its minimum tariff.
3.
By virtue of these same laws, France is not prevented from giving the United States general and unconditional most-favored-nation treatment, but cannot for the moment foresee whether this maximum favor, which France grants to few nations, will be found motivated and justified to the extent that it should be under the requirements of French law by the situation which the treaty that it envisages with confidence will reserve to French exports.

The Government of the United States has besides been willing to recognize that it is just to reserve for the negotiation of a definitive treaty, of which this will certainly be the principal purpose, of the question of the differential regime to which, before the decree of August 30, a large part of American exports were subjected.

These reserves being made, the French Government, desirous above all to facilitate the negotiation of an equitable status for the two countries, [has] wished to put in operation to this end all the means which its legislation authorizes.

1. For the period of the negotiations it offers to the Government of the United States, in exchange for the guarantees which are defined above [below], the return to the situation prior to the decree of August 30.

Thus reductions from the general tariff would be granted to those American products which since September 6 have been subject to that tariff in such a manner as to reestablish the rates which they paid before that date.

In cases where this rate would be inferior or equal to the minimum tariff instituted by the decree of August 30, the United States would enjoy the minimum tariff in the same manner as states enjoying the benefit of the most-favored-nation clause.

In case of doubt [sic] where the nomenclature has been modified by the decree of August 30, arrangements would be taken in such a manner as not to deviate from the above-established principle.

Thus the United States would benefit by a treatment comparatively better than that which was applied to it before September 6, since, as it has just been said, it would henceforth enjoy, for certain products hitherto subject to an itemized rate, equality with most-favored third countries and as for the other products for which the status quo ante rate would be reestablished the rate to which they would be subject will be found closer to the minimum tariff than it was before [Page 695] the decree of August 30th, 1927, as a result of the increase in this tariff.

2. The United States however cannot expect to obtain this return to the ameliorated status quo ante, as has just been said, without giving us in exchange, by means of a protocol, effective guarantees in view of subsequent negotiations.

This protocol should stipulate:

(a)
That it will instruct the Tariff Commission urgently to proceed, in conformity with article 315 of the Fordney Act, with all investigations relative to those products for which French exporters or the French Government may declare that the rates of duty greatly exceed the difference in cost of production.
(b)
That the administrative measures would be studied in a manner to relieve the dispositions of a sanitary character which exclude our agricultural products or prevent the importation of our pharmaceutical products.
(c)
That the interference of the American customs on French territory will come to an end.

It goes without saying that the so-called “countervailing duties” applied on the 7th of this month to certain French products would be withdrawn as soon as the provisional status above proposed is put into effect and in fact by application of this status.

3. On the above three points the Governments would immediately begin an exchange of views; and if, from these pourparlers, new facilities for French exportation to the United States should result, the French Government would assure to the United States in the future treaty a corresponding extension of possibilities for American commerce on the French market, notably by the more extended granting of the most-favored-nation clause.

Thus the two Governments would endeavor, each within the limits of its own legislation, to ameliorate the conditions of the other’s commerce under the terms of a lasting treaty in conformity with the friendly traditions between the two countries.”

Whitehouse
  1. Telegram in four sections.
  2. See telegram No. 315, Oct. 8, 3 p.m., to the Chargé in France, supra.