710.G1A/297: Telegram

The Chairman of the American Delegation ( Hull ) to the Acting Secretary of State

33. Supplementing my 31, December 7, 1 a.m. on tariff and commercial policy. A rereading of your 44, December 6, noon, and especially its last paragraph referring to my 27, raises doubt about whether you intended to foreclose further consideration of a long-term tariff and commercial proposal to be carried out simultaneously by nations with 75 percent of world commerce beginning with the emergence of the nations from the panic conditions and gradually putting into effect such long-term policies as the nations go forward out of and following the worst phases of the panic. If foreclosure was thus intended you will of course disregard this and other telegrams.

I feel for two reasons that our Nation should not propose to go forward indefinitely with no sort of future tariff and commercial policy except the extremely limited policy of bilateral bargaining arrangements confined alone to noncompetitive commodities. For further reasons see my 31, referred to above. Secondly, the economic life of Latin America and many other nations of the world depends upon a future permanent policy of moderate tariffs and normal international trade. Most of the other countries at this Conference, therefore, will present a far more drastic proposal for reduction of trade barriers following the emergence from the panic than our London proposal with the result that we will be obliged to oppose its adoption and possibly under serious disadvantages.

With great deference I therefore lay these additional considerations before you and the President and shall appreciate an early reply.

Hull