811.20 Defense (M) Brazil/1574: Telegram
The Ambassador in Brazil ( Caffery ) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 6—8 p.m.]
4023. My 4014 [4015], October 6.20 I released the following statement to the American press today.
“American Ambassador Jefferson Caffery and Brazilian Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha signed three agreements today providing for the purchase by the United States of Brazilian coffee, cocoa, Brazil nuts and another agreement with respect to the manufacture of rubber goods.21
Ambassador Caffery said that the coffee and cocoa transactions would be handled through established commercial channels and in accordance with existing commercial practice. The coffee agreement provides that the United States through the Commodity Credit Corporation will purchase or underwrite the entire unshipped portion of the United States quota for Brazilian coffee which expired September 30, 1941, and in addition guarantees Brazil the purchase by the United States of 9,300,000 bags of the 1943 Brazilian quota year.
[Page 690]The cocoa agreement provides that the United States will purchase about 1,300,000 of Baia cocoa between October 1942 and March 1943. These purchases will be made by the Commodity Credit Corporation.
Under the Brazil nut accord the Rubber Reserve Company of the United States will buy as much as 10,500 tons of existing stocks produced in the 1942 season.
Agreement on manufactured rubber goods will aid the other American “Republics to meet their essential needs for products of this commodity, and provides other readjustments of crude rubber prices for the 5-year period of the agreement.22
Commenting on the agreements Ambassador Caffery said: ‘The agreements speak volumes for the farsighted administrations of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Getulio Vargas, and afford one more realistic example of the vast range of practical cooperation between Brazil and the United States. They go far toward removing as far as humanly possible the uncertainties of war, and their depressing effects on these industries’.”
Translation Souza Costa’s speech follows.23
- Not printed.↩
- Copies of these agreements were transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in his despatch No. 8678, October 7, not printed. For information in Portuguese concerning these agreements, see Ministério das Relações Exteriores, Relatório de 1942, pp. 33–41.↩
- See pp. 691 ff.↩
- In telegram No. 4028, October 6, 1942, from the Ambassador in Brazil, not printed.↩