611.0031/1348

Memorandum by the Secretary of State

The Minister of Czechoslovakia called and inquired as to the extent of the exceptions that this Government contemplated making in applying the favored-nation doctrine in reciprocity agreements.

[Page 139]

I stated to the Minister what I have said in public addresses and news statements from time to time, to the effect, in brief, that we had proposed a program under which it was sought to have this and other nations gradually move out of the field of trade discriminations generally, including narrow and shortsighted trade methods and practices which thus far had reduced the sum total of international commerce, into the other field in which such discriminations were abolished and abandoned and the doctrine of equality of commercial and industrial rights and opportunities as nearly as possible substituted. I added that naturally there would be some exceptions, temporary or otherwise, as we proceeded with this undertaking; that if a nation was seriously discriminating against us and was not practicing the spirit of the program we proposed, including the favored-nation doctrine, naturally, that country could not expect us to cooperate with it; nor could a country that might be unwilling to offer anything like a reasonable and two-sided trade arrangement expect us to enter into an agreement with it in the first place. Finally, I suggested that we would proceed for the present to seek trade agreements with countries which were the chief producers of a given commodity imported by us; that this made generalization all the more easy and feasible. I also stated that unless this Government proposed its announced program, which made the favored-nation doctrine our objective, and kept the entire program, including this doctrine, alive, we would immediately gravitate down to the low level of the present commercial policy of discriminations and narrow trade practices which had resulted in holding down to the lowest panic level the international trade of the world. I added that countries which did not awaken and go with us in this program would be worse off from year to year until they did get in behind it.

C[ordell] H[ull]