Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1939, The American Republics, Volume V

611.3531/927: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Argentina ( Armour )

Washington , September 1, 1939—7 p.m.

139. Your telegram no. 142, August 31, 11 a.m.

1. The Department had no advance notice that the Argentine Government intended to publish a list of products on which it will consider granting tariff concessions to the United States. Furthermore, apart from unofficial reports in the press, we have no knowledge of what the list referred to in the Foreign Office communication of August 29 contains. It is obvious that the Argentine authorities should have given this Government an opportunity to go over any such list in advance of publication, just as we gave them an opportunity to go over the list of products on which this Government will consider granting concessions to Argentina, which list was published here on August 23.²⁵

2. The unofficial reports previously mentioned indicate that the list of products published by the Argentine Government may have been based on the short list of specially important products appearing on page 8 of this Government’s memorandum of June 28, 1939. However, that memorandum clearly stated that duty reductions would be requested on additional products and that the binding of existing customs treatment would be requested on other products of which the United States is the principal or an important supplier to Argentina.

3. You should discuss this matter immediately with the Argentine authorities in the sense of the above, and say that, in view of their decision to publish a list of products, your Government has instructed you to request them to publish a comprehensive list, to be described as a list of products on which the Government of Argentina will consider granting concessions to the United States, such list to include the following products which, for reasons of economy, are identified in this telegram by their new tariff numerals and brief descriptions only. The list as published should contain full descriptions as they appear in the new Argentine tariff except in those cases, indicated below by asterisks in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6, in which only part of the coverage of the tariff number or numbers or new or additional language as given needs to be specified. The grouping of the items is for the purpose of informing you and the Argentine authorities confidentially as to the general nature of the tentative requests which will be sent by air mail tomorrow. The list as published should be described as indicated above and the products should be listed in order of their tariff numbers with no indication whatever as to the nature of this Government’s tentative requests in regard to any item or group of items.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7. You will note that various types of films are included in groups A, B and C. For the purpose of the published list, number 5160 would appear only once but with the description broad enough to cover the three kinds of films described briefly in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 above.

8. It must be clearly understood that the definitive requests on the part of this Government which will be presented after the hearings will not necessarily be confined to the items covered by paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of this telegram. However, it is believed unlikely, in view of the comprehensive nature of the list, that the hearings will result in requests on additional items.

9. If reasonably brief, please telegraph full translation of the Argentine Government’s announcement in regard to the list it has already published. You should send the full text by air mail as soon as possible if you have not already done so. You should inform the Department promptly in regard to any publications issued by the Argentine authorities in regard to the proposed agreement, telegraphing descriptions or full translations in the case of reasonably brief publications and sending full texts by air mail.

Hull

25. Department of State Bulletin, August 26, 1939, pp. 169–170.