833.24/684: Airgram
The Chargé in Uruguay (Dwyre) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 30—noon.]
A–331. Reference is made to the Department’s airgram No. A–396 of June 2, 1943.88 In the airgram above mentioned the Department transmitted a communication from the Board of Economic Warfare [Page 284] containing the recommendation that non-importable lists be eliminated from the Decentralization Plan A procedure. This communication stated the reasons for such recommendation and directed the Embassy to place this information before the Country Agency and at the same time propose the elimination from the original undertaking for the establishment of Decentralization Plan A that portion of the same which, by the establishment of an importable list, produced, in effect, a complementary non-importable list. The Embassy was further instructed to advise the Department by airgram, immediately upon the reaching of an agreement on the amended procedure, and further to make arrangements for proper announcements both in Uruguay and in Washington of the cancellation of the non-importable list prepared by the Uruguayan Country Agency at the request of our Government as one of the requirements for the establishment of Decentralization Plan A.
Inasmuch as the Embassy, as yet, has received no Current Export Bulletin of the Office of Exports of the Board of Economic Warfare containing the Uruguayan non-importable list, both the Country Agency and the Embassy have presumed that no publication of the same has been made. The Department has been advised telegraphically that the Country Agency was in complete accord with the amendment suggested and had agreed to the immediate abrogation of the Uruguayan non-importable list as an arbitrary published guide for American exporters.
The Country Agency, however, advised the Embassy that it saw no reason for an announcement of the cancellation of the list inasmuch as no publication of the same had been made in Uruguay and no evidence had been received that the list had been published in the United States.
However, in this connection the Country Agency requested the Embassy to advise the Department that Uruguay, in its program of import control, for a number of years has determined the non-essentiality of imports according to a regulative classification of such commodities known as “Category 3”. This non-essential list was communicated to the Department in Embassy’s airgram A–38 of January 21, 1943.89 The Country Agency has informed the Embassy that it cannot legally abrogate the list of commodities classified as non-essential for import and known as “Category 3”. The Country Agency stresses the point that the non-importable list prepared at the request of our Government did not provide a mechanism for indicating the opinion of the Country Agency as to essentiality inasmuch as its own organic procedure already had contemplated such a classification.
[Page 285]The Department has already been advised that exchange liquidations must be granted previous to the shipment from any country to Uruguay of commodities classified by the Uruguayan Government as non-essential. The failure to observe this procedure is punished by fines and many such fines already have been imposed. Furthermore, the Department has been advised that Uruguayan importing firms are allotted fixed annual quotas of foreign exchange which cannot be exceeded without official authorization. A further regulatory measure is that banks generally are discouraging the opening of credits covering non-essential imports in favor of exporters abroad unless exchange permits have been previously granted to the importer in Uruguay.
The Department is informed that, notwithstanding the official procedure relating to imports of non-essentials, the Country Agency is not assuming an arbitrary attitude regarding such imports. The Country Agency, in response to the Department’s recent instructions relating to the improved shipping situation, already has agreed with the Embassy to disregard provisionally the classification “Category 3” as the same relates to exports from the United States.