UNITED STATES OBJECTS TO ANGLO-ARGENTINE TRADE AGREEMENT

Wanganui Chronicle, 1 November 1946, Page 5

UNITED STATES OBJECTS TO ANGLO-ARGENTINE TRADE AGREEMENT

SAYS IT VIOLATES PROMISES MADE WHEN NEGOTIATING LOAN Recd. 8 p.m. Washington, Oct. 30. The United States has objected to Britain regarding sections of the Anglo-Argentine Economic Agreement, which in the view of Administration officials, appear to violate promises Britain made in obtaining her 3,750,000,000-dollar loan, says the Associated Press.

Officials said the objections already had been expressed orally, and the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Snyder, intended to follow up the arguments with a letter to London, seeking an explanation if one of the provisions in the Anglo-Argentine Pact.

The Under-Secretary of State, Mr. Clayton, discussed certain American objections to the trade provisions of the past with the Britisn Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Hugh Dalton, when the latter visited Washington recently. The State Department and the Treasury are dealing jointly with the Anglo - Argentine agreement, which was concluded on September 17 in Buenos Aires.

Mr. Snyder, in his letter, will direct attention to provisions preventing the Argentine spending blocked .sterling where she desires.

In certain circumstances, Britain promises, under this clause, to release some of the money she owes the Argentine if the Argentina buys more from Britain and the Sterling block countries than she sells to them. American ofllcials consider this violates the pledge that Britain will permit all such freed sterling to be converted into any type of currency a country may wish. United States officials acknowledge that on the basis of pre-war trade figures, the clause might never become operative, but feel such provisions would be harmful to trade as a whole

if inserted into later agreements which Britain intends to negotiate. The State department’s trade policy makers have also told Britain they dislike the long-term exclusive basis of the four years’ meat agreement with Argentine, under which Britain buys 83 per cent, of all Argentina’s exportable meat for the first year and 78 per cent, thereafter. The United States maintains that such agreement, coupled with similar exclusive pacts with Canada, Australia and New Zealand, tends to create a trade pattern which conflicts with United States policy of multi-lateral trade. Both Britain and France have pledged themselves to support American trading theories during the loan negotiations with the United States.