832.51/11–1847
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Brazilian Affairs (Dawson)
Subject: Financial Aid for Brazil from the United States.
| Participants: | Mr. Carlos Martins, Ambassador of Brazil |
| Mr. Arthur de Souza Costa, Brazilian Delegate to UNGA and Chairman, Finance Committee, Chamber of Deputies | |
| A–A—Mr. Armour27 | |
| BA—Mr. Dawson |
Mr. Souza Costa explained that President Dutra of Brazil had asked him to explore, while in the United States, the possibility of doing something about Brazil’s difficult exchange position. Now that the General Assembly was drawing to a close, he could turn his attention to his economic mission.
Mr. Souza Costa commented that the European Recovery Program28 had high political as well as economic importance and said that he expected Brazil could help in it. However, the situation was [Page 452] complicated by the fact that half of Brazil’s exports are paid for in soft currencies and only half in dollars whereas practically all of its imports require dollar disbursements. A continuation of Brazilian exports to Europe was impossible, he said, unless some dollars could be received for them as otherwise the inflationary effect would be tremendous. Any such curtailment of exports would lower production of the very goods which would be needed from Brazil in connection with the ERP.
It was Mr. Souza Costa’s thought that the critical period would be between now and the putting into effect of the ERP. He wondered whether it would not be possible for the United States to do something about helping Brazil finance its trade with Europe pending the passage of the ERP legislation.
Mr. Armour stated that our Government was, of course, most sympathetic to the difficulties of Brazil and other countries faced by much the same situation but that at the present stage it was not clear what, if anything, could be done. Mr. Souza Costa was seeing Mr. Thorp later in the afternoon. Since Mr. Thorp was the Assistant Secretary in charge of economic affairs and was working on the ERP, Mr. Armour was sure that he would be glad to go over the problem in more detail.
In the later conversation with Mr. Thorp, Mr. Souza Costa suggested a credit of $100,000,000 to Brazil. That conversation is being covered in another memorandum.31
- Norman Armour, Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs.↩
- For documentation on this program, see volume iii .↩
- Not printed.↩