812.5018/74

The Department of State to the Mexican Embassy

Memorandum

Reference is made to the Mexican Embassy’s memorandum of November 10, 1943, regarding the general question of the scarcity of corn in Mexico and the scarcity of protein meals in the United States of America.

Commodity Credit Corporation has informed the Department of State, in this respect, that it will continue to work with the Department in permitting Mexico to secure corn to meet its minimum requirements on the basis of the understanding that the Government of Mexico will in turn facilitate the movement to the United States of oilseed meals in an equivalent value in order to provide livestock feed.

It is understood that, recently, shipments of these oilseed meals may have been purchased in Mexico by dealers from countries other than the United States of America.

The food situation in the United States continues to be very serious, and Commodity Credit, in view of this great need, hopes that dollar values (measured at United States ceiling prices) of protein feed [Page 449] from Mexico shall at least match the dollar values (also at United States ceiling prices) of corn shipped to Mexico.

With respect to the question of the prices commanded by oilseed meals shipped to the United States for livestock feed, the appropriate authorities of the Government of the United States would only desire to take effective measures for the control of such prices after the arrival of oilseed meal shipments in the United States.

With particular reference to the Embassy’s inquiry as to whether oilseed meal shipped through usual commercial channels shall be taken into account for the purposes indicated in the fourth paragraph hereof, and with reference to the suggested use of October 15, 1943, as the date from which shipments of either corn or meal shall be taken into such account, Commodity Credit finds it entirely acceptable to take into account shipments of either corn or meal made through either the usual commercial channels or through such other channels as may have been necessary starting October 15, 1943.

In the premises, in so far as shipments of oilseed meal to the United States may be concerned, it is trusted that the embargo on such shipments, placed thereon by the Government of Mexico, may not be reapplied, and that there may be taken any appropriate steps to facilitate the passage into normal United States commercial channels of any surplus of Mexican oilseed meal.