740.00119 Council/10–245: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)
8670. Secdel 150. The US–UK Committee on Commercial Policy held its first meeting today.61 The session revealed substantial agreement between the two governments as to the procedural steps to be followed in negotiating and bringing into force the proposed multilateral arrangements in the commercial policy field, these steps including: (a) the holding of a general international conference on trade and employment in June 1946, and (b) the holding of a preliminary, negotiating meeting among the principal trading nations in March 1946. The British have asked that India be included among the nations to meet in March and have also made certain proposals, at variance with our own, regarding the policy to be followed in generalizing the benefits of tariff and trade concessions to the trade of countries which after a considerable period, fail to adhere to the arrangements. These two points will be discussed in later meetings.
- The first meeting of the Commercial Policy Committee had actually taken place on October 1. The points covered in this telegram accurately synopsize those contained in the minutes of this first meeting (611.4131/5–146, Folder 3). The file copy of the telegram bears manuscript corrections indicating that its release time was changed from October 1, 8 p.m., to October 2, 10 a.m.; thus the word “today” should be corrected to read “yesterday”.↩