In October 1938, the French opened secret talks with the Americans to start buying American aircraft to make up productivity deficiencies in the French aircraft industry. Daladier commented that "If I had three or four thousand aircraft Munich would never have happened". Major problems in the Franco-American talks were the issue of how the French were to pay for the American planes and the implications of American neutrality acts. In addition, the American Johnson Act forbade loans to nations that had defaulted on their debts. In February 1939, the French offered to cede their possessions in the Caribbean and the Pacific together with a lump sum payment of ten billion francs.