Joint Statement Following Meetings in the Azores With President Pompidou of France.

PRESIDENT Nixon and President Pompidou reached a broad area of agreement on measures necessary to achieve a settlement at the earliest possible date of the immediate problems of the international monetary system. In cooperation with other nations concerned, they agreed to work toward a prompt realignment of exchange rates through a devaluation of the dollar and revaluation of some other currencies. This realignment could, in their view, under present circumstances, be accompanied by broader permissible margins of fluctuation around the newly established exchange rates.

Aware of the interest of measures involving trade for a lasting equilibrium of the balance of payments, President Pompidou confirmed that France, together with the governments of the other countries which are members of the European Economic Community, was preparing the mandate which would permit the imminent opening of negotiations with the United States in order to settle the short-term problems currently pending and to establish the agenda for the examination of fundamental questions in the area of trade.

President Nixon underscored the contribution that vigorous implementation by the United States of measures to restore domestic wage-price stability and productivity would make toward international equilibrium and the defense of the new dollar exchange rate.

The Presidents agreed that discussion should be undertaken promptly in appropriate forums to resolve fundamental and interrelated issues of monetary reform.