611.3331/263: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Uruguay (Dwyre)
52. Your 66 of September 7, 5 p.m. You should inform the Foreign Minister that your Government is extremely gratified to learn of the desire of his Government to negotiate a trade agreement and express the hope that notice of intention to negotiate can be given at an early date.
With reference to the Foreign Minister’s question concerning progress in connection with the proposed agreement with Argentina, you may say that the Government of Argentina responded favorably in writing to this Government’s proposals of last June and that conversations [Page 793] subsequent to the receipt of the Argentine reply resulted in the establishment and clarification of a mutually satisfactory basis for public announcement on August 23 of intention to negotiate.10 This basis includes the following, as set forth in the announcement.
“The Government of Argentina has agreed that the proposed trade agreement will be based upon the principles of multilateral trade which underlie the trade-agreements program of the United States. The proposed trade agreement will assure that imports into Argentina from the United States will be accorded any advantage given competing imports from any other source and that any governmental regulation of imports into Argentina will be applied in a nondiscriminatory manner.”
Negotiations regarding the proposed general provisions, and tentative discussions in regard to possible Argentine tariff concessions, are now being carried on in Buenos Aires. It is anticipated that definitive negotiations will take place in Washington beginning during the week of October 23.
In the light of your telegram under reference and the procedure followed in the case of Argentina, you should endeavor to obtain a written reply to this Government’s memorandum of last June. The reply should indicate clearly that the Government of Uruguay understands fully what our proposal means, particularly in respect of quantitative restrictions and exchange, with a view to obviating the necessity for extended discussions in advance of public notice of intention to negotiate. We should like to be able to include a statement similar to that quoted above in a press release announcing negotiations with Uruguay. It should be made clear to the Foreign Minister that the list of products upon which this Government will consider granting concessions in a trade agreement is published at the time of public announcement and that no commitments with respect thereto can be made until all interested parties have had an opportunity to present their views thereon either in writing or at public hearings which are held about eight weeks after public announcement. The list in the case of Uruguay would be the same as that included with this Government’s memorandum of last June, with information as to present rates of duty, and would be headed “List of products upon which the United States will consider granting concessions to Uruguay”.
Should the Uruguayan Government desire to follow a similar procedure and publish a list of products upon which it will consider granting concessions to the United States, the list to be published should, of course, be cleared with this Government before publication. [Page 794] Since this Government can not formulate definitively the concessions it will request of Uruguay prior to the public hearings here, any list published by the Uruguayan Government should be extensive enough to cover all products of which the United States is the principal or an important supplier to Uruguay.
Please telegraph the substance of the formal response to our proposals as soon as possible after its receipt.
- Department of State Bulletin, August 26, 1939, p. 167.↩