Mellon–Berenger Agreement
By establishing confidence, it made it possible for Germany to borrow from the United States at reasonable rates and to use the money to pay Britain and France.They, in turn, used the reparations to repay their debt to the United States in what John Maynard Keynes described as a great "circular flow of money".[6] Most French people felt the United States should waive its claims to war debts, and successive governments delayed ratification.At the same time, there was rising nationalist pressure in Germany to negotiate changes to the Dawes Plan and to obtain evacuation of French troops occupying the Rhineland.On 16 September 1928, Aristide Briand of France and Gustav Stresemann of Germany agreed to link negotiations on reparation payments and withdrawal of troops.Under pressure from the Americans, a revised settlement was defined in which the German debts were reduced, and the terms of payment were made easier.[9] Another motive for ratification was that the French debt to the United States of $400 million for munitions acquired after the armistice was due for payment on 1 August 1929.
