611.5131/1437C: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Straus)

108. For your information only. The French Ambassador called yesterday and I told him that we could not accept a one-sided trade agreement as the entire trade agreements program would be discredited if any one of the agreements should be taken off the solid basis of equality. I emphasized that the big objective was to continue to advance this broad program for international business recovery. I concluded by saying I felt that the French Government had not been [Page 91] as mindful of these broad objectives as it should and that it should assume a more liberal attitude with respect to binding quotas and to granting requested concessions in view of these objectives and of the substantial concessions we are prepared to make.

Hull