611.5131/903a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in France (Marriner)
Washington, October 31, 1932—6
p.m.
388. Your 623, October 28, 11 a.m.64
- (1)
- For your confidential guidance in connection with the treaty negotiations, the Department strongly feels that we must continue to be careful to do nothing which may be attributed to this Government as placing upon it the unmerited onus of protracting or breaking off the negotiations. In other words, if it should later develop that these negotiations are not to be successful, naturally we should wish to be in the position of placing the responsibility for their failure upon the French. The Department feels that obviously the French are stalling for time until after the elections here. There is little that we can do, of course, to alter this attitude of the French; but nothing should be done to encourage any cessation of the negotiations. Please bear the foregoing confidential views carefully in mind when making the representations detailed below.
- (2)
- Unless you perceive some objection, we feel that you should advise the appropriate French officials that this Government is deeply disappointed in the list of products to be accorded minimum tariff treatment submitted with your above mentioned telegram and with your 555, of September 23, 6 p.m., and 597 of October 13, 5 p.m.66 You may say that these lists are notable for their paucity of products of first importance to the American export trade and you should add that your Government cannot believe that the French Government is unwilling or unable to submit a supplemental list of more satisfactory breadth and scope. You should point out that the premise on which this Government undertook these negotiations lay in this Government’s desire to improve existing commercial and other relations between France and the United States, now of a highly unsatisfactory character, by concluding a treaty of commerce which would accord the United States general most favored nation treatment as regards its exports; you should add, however, that from the outset of these negotiations, this Government appreciated the French difficulties, not only for special reasons but also for reasons of general policy which lay in the way of according the United States general most favored nation treatment, and accordingly, recognizing these difficulties, this Government in spite of its established policies in the matter was perfectly willing to proceed with the negotiations on the understanding that the treatment which would be accorded American exports would amount substantially to de facto most favored nation treatment through the granting of minimum tariff rates to a substantial list of this country’s exports. Please enlarge upon this argument, in your own discretion, in an endeavor to obtain from the French a more comprehensive list.
- (3)
- You should also endeavor to obtain from the French Government the frequently alluded to reclassification of copper through the issuance of a governmental decree. With regard to this matter you should point out that like the adjustment of the establishment of the quota system, as concerns American exports, this Government also regards the reclassification of copper as a matter to be adjusted separately and apart from the conclusion of any commercial treaty. We were formerly quite prepared to dispose of this copper question coincidentally with the conclusion of the treaty provided the treaty negotiations in general could be disposed of within a reasonable time. Now that the French have made an early disposal of these negotiations apparently impossible, it is obvious that the copper matter should be taken up on its merits. We would, of course, eventually be prepared to reassemble all these agreements within the scope of [Page 255] the treaty. You may say that in view of the apparent protraction of the treaty negotiations, through the submission by the French of a deeply disappointing list of products to be accorded minimum tariff treatment, the least that the French could do in an effort to improve the prevailing highly unsatisfactory condition of the commercial relations between the two countries, and to ameliorate the serious situation arising from widespread discrimination against American exports,—a discrimination which has steadily grown in the years following the modus vivendi of 1927,—would be to issue forthwith the necessary decree reclassifying copper.
- (4)
- In your discretion, in discussing with the French the subjects of paragraphs 2 and 3 above, you may make use of the fact that the Department has been working on these matters at all times in close touch and harmony with Ambassador Edge, and is continuing to study the French proposals, as transmitted in your 60067 and 601,68 regarding various other provisions of the treaty.
Stimson