611.3531/307
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Latin American Affairs (Wilson)
I spoke with the Argentine Ambassador today and in response to his inquiry of February 5 said to him that we intend to generalize to Argentina the concessions granted Brazil under the recently concluded trade agreement. At the same time I pointed out that apparently certain minor discriminations still exist in connection with the Argentine-Chilean modus vivendi of 1932,5 whereunder concessions granted by Argentina to Chile were generalized to Great Britain, France and Italy but have not been generalized to the United States. I said that, as the Ambassador knows, we have our opponents in this country of the unconditional most-favored-nation policy in trade matters and it would be embarrassing to us if it could be alleged that we were generalizing concessions to a country which in certain cases was not generalizing to us; I said, therefore, that we very much hoped that if in fact these minor discriminations in relation to the Chilean modus vivendi still existed that they might be removed.
Dr. Espil said that he appreciated our attitude. At the same time he pointed out that the very important concessions under the Roca Agreement had been immediately generalized to the United States and said that the concessions under the Chilean modus vivendi were most unimportant, that there was some technical reason or other why they had not been generalized to us, that he did not know whether this situation still existed, and that in any case if it did exist he trusted it might be removed. Moreover, he said that as soon as we had a trade agreement with Argentina this would of course place the whole question on an unconditional most-favored-nation basis and he “very much hoped we might soon make the announcement of an intention to negotiate such agreement with Argentina.” I said that I fully agreed and hoped that we might do so at the earliest practicable date.
- The modus vivendi of November 12, 1932, was replaced by a reciprocity treaty of June 3, 1933. For modus vivendi, see Argentina, Ministerio de Relaciones Bxteriores y Culto, Memoria, 1932–1933, vol. i, pp. 322–324; for treaty, see ibid., 1933–1934, vol. i, pp. 1025–1030.↩