Office of the Historian

611.2231/194: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Minister in Ecuador (Gonzalez)

Washington, October 6, 1937—7 p.m.

42. The Department has learned with regret of the developments reported in your telegram No. 54, September 25, 11 a.m. Before considering the undesirable step of suspending negotiations, the Department believes the situation should be thoroughly and frankly discussed with the Ecuadoran Government. Accordingly, I am arranging to call in the Ecuadoran Ambassador with whom I shall go over the facts in the hope that he may use his influence to have the Foreign Minister recede sufficiently from the position he has taken to allow negotiations to continue.

I suggest, if you perceive no objection, that you also see the Foreign Minister again, pointing out, inter alia, that

(1)
At Ecuador’s behest and on the strength of that country’s formal agreement to negotiate on the unconditional most-favored-nation principle, this Government has devoted considerable time and personnel in an effort to work out an agreement with Ecuador at a time when other countries have been pressing for trade agreements.
(2)
This Government had been encouraged to believe both by Ecuador’s interest in having a trade agreement with the United States and the record of its participation in the conferences at Montevideo and Buenos Aires where liberal trade policies were endorsed by the American Republics that Ecuador was prepared to translate them into reality and thus assist in the difficult but urgently needed task of freeing world trade of the mass of artificial barriers which are choking its growth and thus slowing down economic recovery and engendering international ill feeling. The effective cooperation of the Republics of America toward these goals has never been more needed than at this present disturbed moment in world relations.
(3)
This Government believes that were Ecuador to join with the increasing number of countries which are actively participating in the movement to liberalize trade, such action would be of general benefit to international trade relations as well as of cumulative advantage to Ecuadoran economy. The Government of the United States hopes therefore to have Ecuador’s continuing cooperation in order that present negotiations may be brought to a successful conclusion in the near future.51a

Hull
  1. A memorandum consisting of the above three paragraphs was handed to the Ecuadoran Ambassador on October 8.↩