631.5131/627: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in France (Whitehouse)
330. Your 405, October 15, 5 p.m. By direction of the President, you are instructed to present the following aide memoire:99
“The Government of the United States is gratified that the French Government in its aide memoire of October 15 has indicated its willingness, pending treaty negotiations, to remove the recent discriminations and to accord to the commerce of the United States the minimum rate of duty in respect of American products to which the decree of August 30 applied, except that rates to which American products were subject prior to September 6 will be applied where they are higher than the rates instituted by the decree of August 30. It is understood likewise, that where the decree of August 30 has modified the nomenclature, the French Government will assure the application of the same principles. The Government of the United States, however, sees no necessity for a protocol to give effect to the desires of the two governments pending treaty negotiations.
With reference to the specific points raised in the aide memoire of October 15, the Government of the United States is in a position to give the following explanations and assurances within the limits of American law: [Page 697]
- (a)
- The United States Tariff Commission, under its rules of procedure governing investigations of cost of production for action pursuant to the provisions of Section 315 of the Tariff Act of 1922, is prepared to consider applications ‘by any person, partnership, corporation or association’. Special instructions to the Tariff Commission in the sense suggested by the Government of France are therefore unnecessary, since applications for reductions of duty may be made directly, by or on behalf of French producers or exporters who believe that any rate of duty fixed in the Tariff Act of 1922 exceeds the difference between the cost of production of the specified article wholly or in part the growth or product of France, and the cost of production of a Tike or similar article wholly or in part the growth or product of the United States. It may also be noted that under the law the adjustment of the rate of duty must be based upon the difference between the cost of production in the United States and the cost in the principal competing country, but that the law does not require that the application originate in connection with imports from the principal competing country.
- (b)
- The Government of the United States will gladly examine in the most friendly spirit any complaints submitted by the French Government concerning the dispositions of a sanitary character affecting agricultural and pharmaceutical products, or other import requirements, on the condition that the French Government will agree to examine in the same friendly fashion complaints of American exporters which the American Government will submit.
- (c)
- The Government of the United States assures the French Government that if the French Government objects, no investigations of private books and records of French producers, manufacturers, or merchants will be made by representatives of the American Government in French territory. The American Government desires to point out that such investigations might facilitate the work of the Tariff Commission pursuant to Section 315 by furnishing evidence indicating costs of production in France. If, however, in any particular case the French Government objects, the Tariff Commission will be obliged to rely upon other available evidence to establish costs of production.
So far as concerns the so-called countervailing duties, the Government of the United States, on being advised of the reduction in the French rates of duty applicable to the products in question, will be happy to reduce its duties thereon to the extent possible under the terms of the Tariff Law of 1922.
The Government of the United States can not admit that the conclusion of a general commercial treaty, which would clarify the commercial relations between the two countries and do away with causes of friction, should be delayed pending the completion of the investigations which the two governments are willing to undertake, or that it should be made dependent upon their results.
The Government of the United States sincerely hopes that, in view of the foregoing explanations, the discriminations lately imposed by France will immediately be removed in order that negotiations may promptly be begun looking to the conclusion at the earliest possible [Page 698] date of a treaty on the basis of general and unconditional most-favored-nation treatment which the French Government states it envisages for the United States as the result of such negotiations.”
- Presented Oct. 24, 1927.↩