Office of the Historian

611.3531/548a

The Department of State to the Argentine Embassy

Memorandum

1.
In the light of developments that have recently taken place in connection with the trade-agreements program, the United States Government has given renewed consideration to the question of trade-agreement negotiations with Argentina and to the question of the treatment now being accorded American commerce in respect of the terms on which foreign exchange is obtainable in Argentina, and has reached the following conclusions:
2.
If the Argentine Government will assure this Government that it will grant full equality of treatment to United States products with respect to exchange allotments and rates beginning on or before the day on which the formal public notice of intention to negotiate a trade agreement is issued, this Government will issue its “preliminary” announcement of contemplated trade-agreement negotiations within a week after the receipt of this assurance.
3.
The statement made in the preceding paragraph is based on the assumption that the Argentine Government is prepared to negotiate the contemplated agreement upon the basis of the unconditional most-favored-nation principle applied to all forms of trade and payments control.
4.
Although the public announcement which the United States Government is prepared on this basis to make states only that negotiations [Page 226] “are contemplated” and is frequently referred to as a “preliminary” announcement, its issuance is this Government’s customary first step in the negotiation of trade agreements and one which it does not take unless it is confident that the ensuing negotiations can be carried without delay to a successful conclusion. The formal notice that this Government intends to negotiate a trade agreement is issued not less than five weeks after the preliminary announcement.
Washington , November 22, 1937.