Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

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Michael Keller
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Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by Michael Keller » Fri Aug 20, 2010 6:53 am

The ban on importing vehicles from overseas was intended to create jobs for the automotive and truck industries after WW2 rather than flood the market with returning vehicles. Has that ban not outlived it's usefullness now 65 years later?

What can we do about it?
1943 M15A1 Autocar halftrack (restored)
1941 Chevy dump truck (restored and sold)
1978 M416A1 Quarter Ton Trailer (for sale)


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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by DDTrustee » Tue Aug 24, 2010 4:08 am

As long as BATF wants a FORM 6 for the importation of "implements of war" AND there is a the bureacratic jerk in the Clinton State Department "that doesn't believe US citizens can or should own armored vehicles - it won't happen.
Ah, you say - but how come you can buy a T34 Russian MBT?.......Because it would violate a free trade agreement that the US has with Russia and that prevents the State Dept jerk from NOT ISSUING the Form 6 sign off.
If you don't like this policy or want to change it.....make sure you NEVER EVER VOTE FOR A CLINTON for anything
AND
make sure you DON'T VOTE FOR CERTAIN INCUMBENTS in 2010 and really for 2012.
Last edited by DDTrustee on Sat Aug 28, 2010 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by ansancle » Sat Aug 28, 2010 4:57 am

The ban is insane and makes me crazy, so many vehicles and restoration opportunities exist overseas and there is nothing we can do about it.
In the immortal words of Moriarty..... Crap. :?

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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by Michael Keller » Fri Sep 03, 2010 5:19 am

What does it take to get a Form 6 if, say, I want to import an M3 without weapons from Belgium?

Also: perhaps after November perhaps one or many of us can petition a senator or representative in a sympathetic state (Texas?) to offer legislation allowing us to recover vehicles that are over a certain age, say WW2 vintage, and that are clearly so antique as to not represent a threat to anyone except the drivers.

Any thoughts on which state's representative would be best to approach on this?

By the way, there is no need to suggest that it is critical to vote appropriately in November and in 2012. Personlly, I think it is too late to save America but deep down I hope I'm wrong.
1943 M15A1 Autocar halftrack (restored)
1941 Chevy dump truck (restored and sold)
1978 M416A1 Quarter Ton Trailer (for sale)

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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by ansancle » Fri Sep 03, 2010 5:29 am

I have often thought about contacting a legislator to present this issue. However, we need to be careful, on one hand we may end up with what we want, a lift on the import ban. But it also could bring to light that tanks are in private collectors hands, causing some twit politician to pass legislation banning private ownership completely. If conservatives end up with majorities as expected after Nov, that may be the time to act. Of course, who knows if dear leader would veto it.

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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by Cobra Doc » Thu Sep 30, 2010 3:41 am

This will be a moot point if the UN's "Global Small Arms Treaty" is passed, since neither "implements of war", nor parts for "implements of war" will be allowed to cross national borders unless part of a government sale or government brokered (not just approved) deal. And there are nations who want to include "all vehicles designed whole or in part for use by the military" as "implements of war" and "dual use" items as well.

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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by ansancle » Thu Sep 30, 2010 4:58 am

Gee, like I didn't need another reason to be pissed off this morning :x

To be honest, since I have a large amount of capitol tied up in these vehicles, I am always worried that a government fiat will render them worthless.

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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by DDTrustee » Thu Sep 30, 2010 5:13 am

The Fourth Amendment keeps them at bay!!!!!!
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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by battlebaby3 » Sat Dec 25, 2010 4:51 pm

I wonder if there is a way we can get the ball rolling to finally change this law so we can return theses old wheeled and tracked veterans back to the States? There have to be a few public ears we can talk into and show what we are doing with theses historic vehicles.
There has to be a way.Again we can save history and make a few jobs here restoring theses vehicles.

A idea-- PAT
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99th Infantry Division,393rd Reg., E Co. (Battlebabies)
99th Infantry Division Historical Society,Inc. Erie, Pa.
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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by Greencom » Sat Dec 25, 2010 5:14 pm

I do not believe this administration or the previous one gives a $%#@#$% about us or our fondness of driving our military vehicles, it's way under their radar. In fact I'd say that 95% of the public thinks we're strange also so don't expect much support from outside our hobby.

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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by seacon » Sat Dec 25, 2010 11:25 pm

I do not get this one!
The US Government is getting back MAP and MDAP equipment, from firearms to ships, loaned to several European countries after the war. Couldn't they get HMVs back the same way it was done with "Italian" M1 Carbines, "Greek" Garands and M1903s or the LST preserved in IN?
Note that the firearms eventually ended up in private civilian ownership (being sold through the CMP), while the ship is owned (?) or managed by an association...
What makes it so complicated?
ciao
m (from Italy)

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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by Humbermk4 » Wed Dec 29, 2010 11:10 am

I had always heard that the show stopper for Lend/Lease vehicles was that they could not be re-imported without the US government having been repaid for it.

ALl these years, and it pretty much squashed any chance of proving that since the original countries, in turn, sold them off to third party countries.

EXCEPT... a little over a year back, England paid off her Lend/Lease bill.

If that issue was the stopper - legally - then if a vehicle went to the UK and you can prove it with the receipt cards from the Tank Museum at Bovington, or the PRO at Kew Gardens, then I think you should be able to proceed. I am thinking of all those International Halftracks ......

I HAVE successfully - and recently - imported British WW2 armour back to Philadelphia, so getting such things from the UK on a Form 6 has been done by members of our club repeatably over the last couple of years.

Just no one has tried to buy an IH halftrack yet to document it all.

Don't take this wrong guys, but the list is full of hearsay and poltical opinions. Before I imported my Humber Armoured car, I had several long time US collectors swear it couldn't be done. (not that they had tried... they "know somebody who heard somebody " talking at a MV flea market.)

I would like to hear from someone who actually filed the Form 6 on a British Lend Lease vehicle and had the serial number documents to show it went to HM Govenrment as part of Lend /Lease. Or has a letter from State saying specifically that British LL vehicles were still prohibited (post the big pay-off)

Not saying all that to dick-beat agaisnt other collectors. Just want to see the documentation, and not flea market gossip.

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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by tcw » Wed Dec 29, 2010 2:59 pm

Humber mk4,
forign vehicles are easy to import the ban is on US manufactred impliments of war
tim
Armor

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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by ansancle » Thu Dec 30, 2010 4:34 am

I just did a form 6 this month, if there was ANYTHING American on the vehicle it would not have gotten approval. Foreign crap is no sweat.

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Re: Repeal Lend/Lease Ban on Imports

Post by Humbermk4 » Thu Dec 30, 2010 5:59 am

Ok, it is a slow day in the office, so I will take a moment to get out my X-acto knofe to split a hair or two.....

As I understood the situation, the original documents for the Lend/Lease program saw <Snip from Wikipedia> Lend-Lease (Public Law 77-11)[1] was the name of the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material between 1941 and 1945.

A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $759 billion at 2008 prices) worth of supplies were shipped: $31.4 billion to Britain, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France and $1.6 billion to China. Reverse Lend Lease comprised services (like rent on air bases) that went to the U.S. totaled $7.8 billion, of which $6.8 billion came from the British and the Commonwealth. The terms of the agreement provided that the material was to be used until time for their return or destruction. (Supplies after the termination date were sold to Britain at a discount, for £1.075 billion, using long-term loans from the U.S.) Canada operated a similar program that sent $4.7 billion in supplies to Britain and the Soviet Union.[2]

Repayment: There was no charge for the Lend Lease aid delivered during the war, but the Americans did expect the return of some durable goods such as ships. Congress had not authorized the gift of supplies after the war, so the administration charged for them, usually at a 90% discount. Large quantities of undelivered goods were in Britain or in transit when Lend-Lease terminated on 2 September 1945. Britain wished to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post war period. In 1946, the post-war Anglo-American loan further indebted Britain to the U.S. Lend-lease items retained were sold to Britain at 10% of nominal value, giving an initial loan value of £1.075 billion for the Lend Lease portion of the post-war loans. Payment was to be stretched out over 50 annual payments, starting in 1951 and with five years of deferred payments, at 2% interest.[26] The final payment of $83.3 million (£42.5 million), due on 31 December 2006 (repayment having been deferred in the allowed five years), was made on 29 December 2006 (the last working day of the year). After this final payment Britain's Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Ed Balls, formally thanked the U.S. for its wartime support. <end snip>

So, the Clinton administration dusted off the "Must be paid back" provisions as the rational to prohibit any US vehicles from being re-imported, while allowing (grudgingly) foreign made vehicles to continue to be imported. Yes, there was the court case that pushed State into allowing BATF to process the non-lend lease vehicles that were being held up.

Obviously, that worked becasse I got my Humber in.

SO here is where the hair splitting comes in. Is what some people call the "Ban", really just enforcing the terms of the 1941 Act? and that once the payback provisions of the Act are satisfied, the vehicles will "qualify" to be re-imported, just as other AFVs are?

Since the only country to pay back the Lend-Lease debt is the UK, does that mean that vehicles documentd to have been delivered to them Lend-Lease will now be cleared?

ANd that means only for any attempts to import one, like an International Halftrack, with paperwork started AFTER 29 December 2006?

All this doesn't help get a WC-51 in from Norway, or a Stuart in from Argentina, but it might allow some stuff to come in fromt he UK market.


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