Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, The British Commonwealth; Europe, Volume III

641.006/9–547

The Secretary of State to the British Ambassador (Inverchapel)

confidential

The Secretary of State presents his compliments to His Excellency the British Ambassador and has the honor to refer to the directive on import licensing policy in the British colonial dependencies, which the Commercial Counselor of the British Embassy handed to officers of the Department of State on September 5, 1947.¹

In the Department’s aide-mémoire of July 24, 1947 on this subject, it was stated that in the territories in which the United States is entitled to equality of treatment under mandate and trusteeship agreements at present in force, the Government of the United States assumed there would be no discrimination against the United States in favor of any other country including the United Kingdom. It was also assumed that there would be no discrimination in the territories of the Congo Basin and in the former Italian colonies. The Secretary of State notes that, nevertheless, the British Government has sent the present directive, calling for the establishment of import control regimes which discriminate against the United States in favor of the United Kingdom, to the mandates, trust territories, the Congo Basin area and the former Italian colonies.

The principle of equality of treatment is one to which this Government attaches importance both in general and in its application to these territories. In so far as the trust territories are concerned, the British action may involve questions of general policy which must be considered in the light of their relation to trust territories administered by other states and of their interest to the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations. Furthermore, this Government is not aware how discrimination in any of these territories will be of significant benefit to the United Kingdom in its present difficulties.

The Secretary of State would therefore appreciate receiving a statement setting forth the reasons why the British Government considers it necessary to pursue this policy with respect to the territories in question, and indicating its views as to how this action is reconciled with the pertinent international agreements which were cited in the Department of State’s aide-mémoire of July 24, 1947.²

Washington, October 16, 1947.

1. Not printed.
2. On December 17 Mr. Anthony Percival, Commercial Counselor, British Embassy, informed Mr. Wilson Beale, Assistant Chief of the Division of Commercial Policy, that he had had no further response from London regarding the Department’s note of October 16. (641.006/12–1747)