611.6231/725
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Western European Affairs (Dunn)
Dr. Leitner, Counselor of the German Embassy, came in this morning and stated that the Embassy had received a message from the Foreign Office at Berlin to the following effect:
They were very sorry that the conversations between Mr. Ritter and the officials of the Department of State did not result in any definite progress toward preparing for the negotiations of a trade treaty. They were very gratified, however, to learn of the Secretary’s statement that this Government would refrain from taking any action which might aggravate the situation or might have a tendency to make any more difficult the final solution of the question of trade between the two countries.
The German authorities took occasion to remark that the withholding of most-favored-nation treatment by this country would under the law require the German Government to withhold most-favored-nation treatment in the matter of tariffs to American goods. Dr. Leitner gave as his opinion, however, that this action by the German Government need not necessarily be of a very serious nature and that the German Government for its part would also undertake to refrain from doing anything which would aggravate the situation and hoped that efforts to arrive at a trade treaty would continue and would result in success within the near future.
[Page 471]I told Dr. Leitner that I knew that the Secretary would be very gratified to receive this message from the German Government and that the Secretary had many times expressed himself as most anxious to find some means of arriving at a solution of present trade problems with Germany and had directed all of us in the Department not to leave any stone unturned with a view to trying to find some way of overcoming the difficulties of the present situation in connection with the negotiation of a trade agreement with Germany. I assured Dr. Leitner that even in the face of the lack of concrete results from Mr. Ritter’s visit, we all here felt gratified to have had the opportunity to have talked with him and we all felt that his visit would be of great benefit in having given him the opportunity to meet the Secretary and the responsible officers of the Department who are concerned with this matter and that we were still hopeful that as a result of his visit and a sincere effort on both sides we might look forward to some progress toward negotiations in the future.