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  4. Document 644

611.2331/340

The Peruvian Embassy to the Department of State

[ Washington ,] April 27, 1942.

Aide-Mémoire

The following modifications are offered to the Preliminary Lists that have been handed to the Peruvian Embassy the 19th of January and 18th of February 1942,33 of products on which the Government of the United States is desirous of securing improved tariff treatment or consolidation of existing tariff treatment: [Page 689]

1.
The present Peruvian tariff should be taken as a basis and not the rate of duty in effect before December 21, 1941 so that the reductions which the Government of the United States is requesting, when accepted by the Peruvian Government, should be deducted from the actual rate and the binding which the United States Government request, when accepted by the Peruvian Government, should be on the basis of the present rate.
2.
The reduction or elimination of additional duties and taxes requested by the United States cannot in any case be contemplated because they all represent charges of internal character established by special laws with special ends and they apply not only to imported articles but to those of the same character of domestic origin.
3.
Some of the reductions requested cannot be granted because of the effect they would have on our Trade Agreement with Chile. As it is well known, this Trade Agreement stipulates that any concession granted to Chile if extended to another country, would compel the Peruvian Government to grant to Chile new concessions in compensation of that extension.
4.
Some other concessions requested by the Government of the United States cannot be granted because they would affect domestic industries presently established or to be established in the very near future.
5.
As a résumé of these considerations following are the concessions that could be granted by the Peruvian Government to the Government of the United States in the case that all the concessions offered to Peru in the Aide-Mémoire of the Department of State of April 1st34 are granted to Peru plus those on cotton specifically mentioned in the Aide-Mémoire of the Department of State of June 4th, 1941:35

[Here follows list of tariff concessions.]

  1. Neither printed.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. Foreign Relations, 1941, Vol. vii, p. 543.↩