611.473/22a: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Consul General at Sydney (Moffat)
The President has directed the Secretary of the Treasury to withhold beginning August 1st next the extension to imports from Australia of the reductions in duties granted by this Government in the trade agreements entered into under the trade agreements act. Although this step will probably not become public until the Secretary of the Treasury issues instructions to collectors of customs about July 1st, you may, if you see no objection, inform the Australian authorities that this Government, in view of the discriminatory application of the recent Australian legislation felt obliged in pursuance of the policy laid down in our trade agreements act to withhold from Australia the generalization of tariff reductions made under that act.
It is a matter of deep regret to us that this action became necessary as we are approaching every country in a friendly spirit and it is in that spirit we approached Australia. Continuing as heretofore our trade agreements policy of most-favored-nation treatment, we desire to continue to urge the Australian Government to abandon its policy of discrimination which we consider unequal and unfair and to give us a chance to extend to it the most-favored-nation policy.