Evening star., 1934-08-25
+U.S. NOW PLANNING
TRADE PACTS WITH
COFFEE COUNTRIES
Reciprocal Tariff Policy
Bears First Fruit in
Cuban Treaty.
SUGAR, RUM, TOBACCO
DUTIES SHARPLY CUT
American Manufacturers and
Farmers Also to Benefit
From Reductions.
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
Now that the Government has
struck a bargain with Cuba in the
opening of new tariff era" it is
expected to press trade negotiations
with certain Latin American coffee
countries.
The State Department hopes to lose
no time in extending the new recip-
rocal trade policy of the administra-
ton, which bore its first fruits in
the proclamation of the Cuban Amer
ican treaty by President Roosevelt.
The document was signed and
sealed with ceremony yesterday. Bat
tering large chunks out of the tariff
barriers between the two nations, it
grants Cuba substantial reductions on
sugar. rum, cigars and cigar tobacco,
as well as seasonal cuts on Winter
vegetables.
Cuba in turn gives the United
States the benefit of tariff reductions
on many products.
Effective September 3.
The new trade arrangement be-
comes effective September for a
three-year term, after which it can
be denounced by either government
upon six months notice.
Officials said American farmers and
manufacturers stand to benefit, and
that both nations as a whole should
gain from the increased trade.
Among those cool to the treaty were
producers of sugar products on the
mainland and in the territories.
This gift to the Cubans would
seem to be most generous" said Royal
D. Mead, Washington counsel for the
Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association
The rum club of the world already
had protested tariff reductions on thai
liquor, saying they would give one
American firm a monopoly
The reduction in the tariff or
Cuban sugar was from 1 u cents tc
$40 of a cent pound. This wa.
estimated in some quarters to be worth
$23,000,000 a year to Cuban sugar
people, but some other sugar interest.
gave higher estimate. The new sugar
duty automatically ceases in cast
quota provisions of the Jones -Costigar
act lapse. The duty on Cuban run
was cut from 81 to $3.50 per gallon
and tobacco duties. including cigars
reduced from 20 to 1912 per cent, with
wrapper tobacco lowered from 81 90
to $1.50 a pound.
Lard Tariff Cut.
Cuba in turn slashed her tariff or
American lard from S918 to S2.75 pei
100 pounds, and further agreed tc
cut that rate to $1.45 and remove 8
consumption tax of 81 per 100 pound.
two years hence.
American lard sales to Cuba amount.
ed to nearly $13,000,000 in 1925, but
since have declined to only a hall
million dollars annually.
The pact was the first of IS which
the State Department already has
under negotiation or plans to initiate
in an effort to revive an American
foreign trade which has dwindled
alarmingly in recent years.
Signing of the agreement, with
elaborate ceremony. took place at the
State Department shortly after pm
yesterday before a small group of
American and Cuban officials and
newspaper men. Immediately after
ward the agreement was proclaimed
at the White House by President
Roosevelt.
Secretary of State Hull, exultant at
the successful negotiation of the first
in the proposed series of similar
agreements, interrupted his vacation
in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains
to return to Washington for the sign
ing ceremony.
DR.. Cosme de la Torriente, Cuban
secretary of state, made a special trip
from Havana to afflx his signature
to a document expected to strengthen
the Cuban government through sta
bilizing and improving economic con-
ditions in the island.
Caffery Comes From Cuba.
Jefferson Caffery. American AM
baSsador to Cuba, who negotiated the
final phases of the agreement, also
came from Havana to sign his name
Other signers were Summer Welles,
Assistant Secretary of State in charge
of Latin American relations, who
initiated the negotiations in Havana
nearly year ago while serving as
Ambassador, and Manuel Marquee
Sterling, the Cuban Ambassador, who
has been strenuously working on the
agreement during the last year.
American officials described the
agreement as mutually advantageous
to both countries.
THE concessions made by Cuba to
the United States" the State De-
partment said in an official summary
of the agreements contents, should
result in an expansion in the volume
of American exports to the direct
benefit of producers of goods for
sale in the Cuban market.
Since a very large part of the
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