611.5821/238
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Phillips)
The Swedish Minister expressed the pleasure that he felt at the course of the trade agreement negotiations and spoke in a highly commendatory way of Mr. Hickerson; he said that he had been somewhat disturbed by a reference which had been made in a recent meeting to the attitude of the President, which was something to the effect that “we (the Department of State) must be sure to get our money’s worth” out of the agreement. The Minister feared that the President had not fully grasped the tariff situation in Sweden; that Sweden was one of the most liberal tariff countries in the world; that it had, with the utmost difficulty, abstained from raising the tariff in 1922, at the very moment that the United States had begun to raise its tariff against Sweden and other countries; in 1930 and 1931, when the United States embarked on its high tariff program, again Sweden had withstood the pressure of reciprocating by raising its tariff; the relative tariff positions, therefore, between the United States and Sweden were, at the moment, wholly different; the one being a very low tariff country, the other a high tariff country; in the circumstances, the best that the Swedish Government could do was to bind as many United States imports as possible on the free list, although there had been a few reductions which it had been possible to make; the Minister feared that, if the State Department now pressed the Swedish Government for further concessions, the agreement itself would be in danger; he himself had gone as far as he could to press his Government and could do nothing more; he had sent a telegram last night, which represented [Page 742] the last effort which he could make in this direction; he again expressed his hope that the President could be made aware of the Swedish position.
I replied that the Minister was, of course, aware of the delicacy of the position in which the Department found itself in negotiating trade agreements; that in a sense we are on trial and that every item within an agreement would be closely scrutinized and criticized; it would be necessary, therefore, that each agreement should show on its face that it was worthwhile from the American point of view; otherwise, the critics would gain in strength and might ultimately defeat the whole program. The Minister said that he thoroughly understood this disposition.