651.116/296: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Edge) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7:09 p.m.]
202. The resolution quoted below was unanimously approved by the Board of Directors and members of the American Chamber of Commerce in France at a meeting held on March 30. The President of the Chamber, Mr. Charles G. Loeb, delivered it to me in person this morning with the request that it be transmitted to the Department. The Embassy’s observations covering various points raised in the resolution will go forward by next pouch in despatch No. 2430, April 2.13
“Whereas, the Government of the French Republic has placed embargoes in the form of general import quotas that restrict and in many instances prevent the importation into France of products from the United States, and,
Whereas, the nature of the quotas and their application retroactively without prior notice and without indication of when commercial freedom may be restored, destroy the trade in France of importers of American products by undermining confidence in them, alienating their customers, shutting off their sources of supply and impairing their business security and,
Whereas, in deriving their legal sanction chiefly from article 17 of the French tariff law the quota measures are predicated upon the existence of discrimination against French commerce on the part of the United States which does not in fact exist, and,
[Page 212]Whereas, in so far as can be ascertained the quotas have been inspired and frequently dictated by French manufacturers, direct competitors of the American interests concerned and,
Whereas, the size, scope and character of the quotas have frequently been determined in agreement with the principal foreign competitors of the interests of the United States thereby affected but without reference to or consultation with the latter and,
Whereas, the periods of time ostensibly selected in determining the basis for the quotas and their subdivisions among the various countries concerned have often been such as to favor the trade of other countries to the prejudice of the trade of the United States and,
Whereas, the quotas assigned to other import industrial countries have in practically all instances been in excess of those assigned to the United States and,
Whereas, unrestricted export to France from other countries of products under quotas has frequently been authorized in the form of reparation deliveries in kind and,
Whereas, the control of exports to France of products under quotas has frequently been delegated to public and private organizations in other countries of origin out not in the United States and,
Whereas, the American Chamber of Commerce in France endeavored fairly and diligently, but without success, to obtain relief for the interests affected from the manifest inequities and hardships of the existing situation and,
Whereas, by reason of the practices and regulations described in the foregoing the Government of the French Republic has imposed limitations upon the products of the United States that are not equally enforced upon like products of every foreign country and has discriminated in fact against the commerce of the United States in such a manner as to place the Commerce of the United States at a disadvantage compared with the Commerce of other foreign countries now, therefore, be it
Resolved That the Honorable Walter E. Edge, Ambassador of the United States for France be and hereby is petitioned to invite the attention of the Government of the United States to the inequities of the existing situation and to the imperative need for relief to the end that the President of the United States may in his discretion exercise the powers of his high office in such manner as he may deem fitting and proper to obtain just and equal treatment for the commerce of the United States.”
- Not printed.↩