Office of the Historian

631.116/65: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Venezuela (Corrigan)

Washington, January 5, 1944—2 p.m.

14. With reference to Department’s circular instruction of October 5, 194310 and the Embassy’s Despatch No. 5157 of November 30, 1943,11 please report fully by airgram any other instances12 indicating that import control officials are invoking decentralization as means for the imposition of trade restrictions which are not in fact warranted by war conditions of shipping or supply, particularly with a view to protecting the local manufacture of products competing with proposed imports and possibly in contravention of the trade agreement.

In as much as the information in question will be required in connection with any discussions with General Medina13 and his aides dealing with outstanding problems between the two countries, it is desired that the reply to this instruction reach the Department before the Venezuelans’ arrival in Washington.

Hull
  1. Not printed; in it the Department cautioned its missions in the American Republics to be alert to the use of the decentralized system of export controls for imposing unwarranted restrictions on trade (610.1131/522a).↩
  2. Not printed; it reported the experience of a pharmaceutical firm in having the issuance of an import recommendation by the Venezuelan Government conditioned upon an agreement by the company to install equipment and manufacture the product in Venezuela (631.116/65).↩
  3. Further instances were detailed by the Counselor for Economic Affairs, H. Lawrence Groves, to the Ambassador in a report of January 10, 1944, transmitted to the Department in despatch 5620, March 16, 1944, not printed (631.116/75).↩
  4. Gen. Isaias Medina Angarita, President of Venezuela. In January 1944 he came to Washington with his aides to discuss Venezuela’s economic problems with Department of State officials.↩