611.1431/123: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Guatemala ( O’Donoghue )
24. With reference to your despatch No. 729 of August 10. Schedule II. Concerning the seven conditions suggested by Guatemala you may inform the Guatemalan Government as follows:
[Page 605]Condition 1: We are prepared to meet this request specifically on Guatemala’s principal exports to the United States, viz. bananas, coffee, cocoa, sisal fibre, raw deerskins, and cabinet woods in the log.
Condition 2: We can meet this request on “prepared or preserved guavas, and not specially provided for,” with rate of 17½ percent ad valorem and on “mango pastes and pulps, and guava pastes and pulps,” with rate of 28 percent ad valorem. The Guatemalan Government will of course understand that we cannot assume the blanket commitment it suggests in its first two conditions but that commitments on specific products only can be entered into by including them in Schedule II.
Condition 3 is met by Article VI of General Provisions.
Condition 4 cannot be granted. Recorded imports of alligator pears from Guatemala are too negligible to justify attempting to alter present tariff and sanitary treatment.
Condition 5 is assured by Article X and Condition 6 by the penultimate paragraph of Article XIV of the General Provisions.
Condition 7 or list number 2: It is regretted that the duty reductions requested by Guatemala on wood furniture, alligator pears, dried fruits (see above under Condition 2), dried beans, cattle hides and industrial alcohol cannot be granted, due to a consideration which it is believed Guatemala understands, viz. tariff reductions on specific commodities under our present trade agreements program are made in the first instance only to chief or important suppliers of the commodities in question. Imports from Guatemala of the commodities named above are either nil or negligible in comparison with our imports from other sources. You may point out, however, that Guatemala may later receive concessions on some of these commodities by virtue of generalization to it of concessions made in subsequently concluded trade agreements with chief or important suppliers.
In the case of fresh pineapples, we are prepared to extend to Guatemala the rate of nine-tenths of 1 cent each in bulk or 35 cents per crate originally granted Haiti.
For your confidential information, studies are being made to determine whether it will be possible to grant Guatemala a tariff reduction on bee honey and to bind citronella oil and cardamon seed on the free list. You will be advised as soon as a decision is reached.