611.5131/574
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Castle) of a Conversation With the French Ambassador (Claudel)
The French Ambassador called to read to me part of the message he had had from his Government on the general tariff subject. He asked whether Mr. Whitehouse was right in saying that the answer made by the Foreign Office would be inacceptable to this Government. I told him that Mr. Whitehouse was entirely correct. I said that I had been surprised that the French Government did not realize that under our law it was impossible for us to negotiate any treaty containing reciprocal tariff favors. He asked whether we would not be willing in that case to lower the duties on some of the goods imported from France. I told him that this was at the moment quite impossible, that it could only be done by Congressional action and only in connection with a general revision of the tariff schedule. I said there was no possibility that Congress would take up the matter this winter and that I could, of course, give no assurance that any change would be made in anything like the immediate future. I pointed out to him, however, that although it was true that our tariff was fairly high so far as a great many of the things introduced from France was concerned, that it nevertheless had not prevented those goods from coming to this country and that the trade with France was steadily increasing.
He asked me what we meant by general most-favored-nation treatment and I told him we meant exactly what the phrase indicated and exactly what had been accepted as the meaning of the phrase in the International Economic Conference.
He asked whether in case France had an agreement with all countries of the world giving them the minimum tariff rates and did not apply minimum tariff rates to the United States, we should consider it discrimination. I told him it was obvious that it would be discrimination. He then asked whether if France had a treaty with only one nation giving minimum rates and imposed maximum rates on all the rest of the world we would consider this discrimination. I said that we should; that the point was that we felt the only reasonable and safe international trade relation must be based on equality of treatment toward all people. I said that if in negotiating a treaty France should refer to the fact that she had certain engagements with Morocco, for example, we should undoubtedly put through the treaty without asking France to give up those engagements just as if it was necessary for us to make certain exceptions in the case of Cuba. I said that one of the very important aspects of this whole situation was that in the [Page 678] special exceptions that might be made in a treaty both sides knew that whatever changes might be made in tariff rates in the future they would apply equally to everybody outside of the exception. The Ambassador said he very much dreaded a tariff war if we should impose extra duties under Article 317, and I said that we also would keenly regret any such thing and that for this reason I hoped that France might be willing to fall into line with the rest of the world and accept the thesis which we were pressing, which had already been accepted by everyone else.
I told him that it seemed very strange to me that France should be giving special favors to Germany, for example, at the expense of the United States. He asked whether, if we added fifty per cent under Section 317, we would do it to all French imports or only an amount of imports equal to the amount of American exports affected by the new French tariff. I told him that I could not answer this question; that we should not consider the amount; that possibly we might want to put extra duties on a very large proportion of imports from France. I pointed out to him that the only excuse for the double column of duties in France was to give a bargaining point and that inasmuch as France seemed to insist on bargaining it might be wise for us to have a good solid amount to bargain with.
The Ambassador said he would keep me informed of any word he got from his Government and I promised to send him a copy of such memoranda as we might telegraph to Paris.