611.2131/116a: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Chargé in Colombia (Dawson)
77. In connection with the trade agreement negotiations, the Colombian Minister has now raised the question of obtaining a larger “quota” of petroleum imports into the United States. You may point out to the appropriate Colombian authorities and American petroleum interests who are presumably also behind the move that by an order of September 28 of the Secretary of the Interior until further notice imports of petroleum into the United States are limited to an amount not exceeding the average daily imports during the last 6 months of 1932, but that it is up to the importing company to determine from what foreign sources it wishes to purchase its petroleum for import into the United States.
The order is complementary to the domestic petroleum code and the efforts drastically to curtail production in the United States to bring it into line with consumption.