832.61311/1–2247: Airgram
The Ambassador in Brazil (Pawley) to the Secretary of State
A–98. I have just received a letter from Foreign Minister Raul Fernandes from which I quote a translation concerning the supply of wheat to Brazil:
“I wish to take advantage of this opportunity to inform Your Excellency confidentially that I have serious reasons to believe that Argentina will place us during the month of February in the dilemma of not receiving wheat or of paying the exorbitant price of 45 pesos per hundred kilos. Because of this disagreeable prospect, I have instructed our Embassy in Washington to endeavor to obtain relief in the United States and I will greatly appreciate the assistance of the good offices [Page 468] of Your Excellency toward this request and thus put us above the extortion with which we are threatened.”
Under the Brazilian-Argentine agreement, Argentina is obligated to ship 120,000 tons of wheat monthly to Brazil, beginning January 1, 1947. As far as the Embassy has been able to ascertain, there has been no wheat whatever shipped under this agreement. In view of this situation and the above-quoted request of the Foreign Minister, the Embassy recommends that a temporary allocation of wheat for shipment to Brazil be established in the United States until such time as the present difficulties regarding the shipment of wheat from Argentina have been resolved.