611.3231/552
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Latin American Affairs (Wilson)
When Mr. Accioly, Counselor of the Brazilian Embassy, came in to talk about Cuba,2 I took advantage of his visit to mention the letter of the Brazilian Ambassador addressed to the Secretary on August 1, 1933, regarding the commercial treaty conversations. I said that, with reference to Ambassador Lima’s request for information as to our views concerning bases on which a commercial agreement would be drawn up, that the Secretary would write in reply. I said that we felt that the proposed agreement would rest on the following basis: That on one hand Brazil would consider the reductions which she was prepared to give to American products in return for the commitment on the part of the United States that leading Brazilian products would remain on the free list. I said that this seemed a fair way of looking at it, in view of the fact that Brazilian exports to the United States greatly exceeded Brazilian imports from the United States. Mr. Accioly vouchsafed no comment on this.
I also referred to the conversation which the Brazilian Ambassador had with Mr. Phillips on July 27, in which the Ambassador said that he did not think that his Government would send any experts to the United States for these conversations. I said that we were somewhat surprised at hearing this, since we felt that if our conversations were to be at all serious we ought to have properly qualified technical advisers on both sides who could consider definitively the questions which would arise on the basis of the conversations mentioned above. I said that both the Colombians and Argentines were sending experts.3 Mr. Accioly said that he had not heard this before and that if this was the case he believed his Government also would send experts.
I said that we had been making a study of our Brazilian-American trade relations and hoped that Brazil would decide to send experts, and would send them up to Washington at an early date, so that we could open our conversations.
- For correspondence regarding the revolution in Cuba, see pp. 270 ff.↩
- For correspondence concerning conversations with Argentina, see vol. iv, pp. 642 ff.; with Colombia, see post, pp. 217 ff.↩