Gentlemen's Agreement

US-Japanese understanding negotiated by US president Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, by which Japan agreed to forbid the emigration of its labourers to the USA and Roosevelt promised to end discrimination against Japanese people living in the USA. The Japanese government agreed to issue passports to immigrants to the USA only if they were skilled or professional men; in return, Roosevelt promised that he would not seek legislation prohibiting the Japanese from moving to the USA, and he persuaded the city of San Francisco to desegregate its schools.

Aimed at reducing tensions between Japan and the USA, the agreement failed to reduce the suspicions each nation held of the other's intentions, and it was ended in 1924 by the Act of Congress, which excluded immigration from Japan. The Chinese Exclusion Act 1882 had similarly banned immigration of Chinese labourers.