Unconditional most-favored-nation treatment; no reciprocal bargains or preferences

The historic American plan known as the most-favored-nation principle has been our guiding program, and we believe that policy to be the only one consistent with a full development of international trade, the only one suitable for a country having as wide and diverse a commerce as America, and the one most appropriate for us in view of the great variety of our industrial, agricultural and mineral products and the traditions of our people.

Any other plan involves bargains and partnerships with foreign nations, and as a permanent policy is unsuited to America's position.

Now this demonstrates just one thing: that in an intelligent democracy you cannot surrender the welfare of one industry or one locality in order to gain something for another.

Reciprocal tariff can mean only one thing, and that is that the tariffs on certain industrial products from certain localities must be lowered in exchange for some hypothetical value to some other community. In other words, the question of the fate of your community is to be held in the balance. That threatens continuous revision and a continuous disturbance.