561.333D3/1616: Airgram
The Ambassador in Brazil (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 24—12 p.m.]
A–2784. Reference is made to the Department’s telegrams 4526 of December 11, 6 p.m.,2 4553 of December 13, midnight, and 4562 of [Page 705] December 15 [14], 10 [9] p.m., regarding the coffee situation in the United States.
For the Department’s strictly confidential information, the Embassy furnished the Minister of Finance on December 16, with a summary of the pertinent points in the telegrams under reference and impressed the Minister with the importance of the Brazilian Government adopting at once measures to (1) bring prices in line with ceiling prices in the United States, and (2) further facilitate entries at the port of Santos and the shipment of coffee to the United States. The Embassy also took advantage of a recent meeting with Minister Walder Sarmanho of the Brazilian Embassy in Washington, who is visiting Rio de Janeiro, to inform him of the coffee situation. He said that he would report to President Vargas and recommend that the Brazilian Government adopt measures to put the coffee trade on a more businesslike and efficient basis.
The Minister of Finance stated that the President of the National Coffee Department had informed him that he had increased entries at the port of Santos to 40,000 bags a day and that prices had declined to the level of our ceiling prices in the United States. The Minister added that he would instruct the President of the National Coffee Department to do whatever is necessary to accelerate shipments to the United States and that in this connection he has requested the Railway Coordinator of the Brazilian Government to facilitate the transportation of coffee from the interior of São Paulo to the port of Santos. The Minister remarked that he has always attached great importance to the blending of Brazilian coffee in the United States and that it is the policy of his Government to lend its full cooperation with a view to increasing the mixture.
- Not printed; the Embassy was advised to discourage price agitation in the purchase of the “new crop coffees” (832.61333/894).↩