611.5231/761

Memorandum by the Acting Secretary of State

The Spanish Ambassador came in to ask me whether I could give him any information regarding the prospects of negotiating a new commercial treaty with Spain, to which he had referred some days ago. I said that we were hoping to be able to negotiate trade agreements with a few countries and to submit them to the Senate next winter, but that as far as we had gone Spain was not included among those countries. I pointed out the fact that Spain was discriminating against American trade and it did not seem to me to be a good moment to negotiate a trade agreement with Spain. The Ambassador replied that there were complaints on both sides, that Spain had a good many complaints against the United States, and that it was his hope that all of these complaints could be straightened out through a new commercial treaty. I did not give the Ambassador a [Page 695] definite reply but left him with the impression that we were not eager to go forward with Spanish treaties at this time.

William Phillips