611.1531/85: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Honduras (Gibson)

23. Your telegram No. 27, June 26, 1 p.m. The Department hopes to be able to give you definite instructions regarding Schedule I within the next week. For your strictly confidential information, we are considering a final request to Honduras asking that the present duty on wheat flour be bound against increase and that wheat be placed on the free list. Cable your personal reaction to this.

As regards the general provisions, pending completion of study here, we believe time may be saved in the end if you take up at once with the Honduran Government the question of the most-favored-nation article, which is Article X of our draft and IX of theirs. Their version is not acceptable in its present conditional form. You may point out that our draft of this article corresponds to the language used in Article VII of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights between this Government and Honduras, which cannot be denounced prior to 1938. This Government is thus not asking Honduras for any more in this connection than a reaffirmation of the principle now governing the commercial relations of the two countries.

Hull