entered a Tripartite Pact with Japan and Italy, in October 1940, Ribbentrop wrote to Stalin about "the historical mission of the Four Powers – the Soviet Union, Italy, Japan and Germany – to adopt a long range-policy and to direct the future development of their peoples into the right channels by delimitation of their interests in a worldwide scale." Stalin replied, referencing entering an agreement regarding a "permanent basis" for their "mutual interests." Stalin sent Molotov to Berlin to negotiate the terms for the Soviet Union to join the Axis and potentially enjoy the spoils of the pact. Ribbentrop asked Molotov to sign another secret protocol with the statement: "The focal point of the territorial aspirations of the Soviet Union would presumably be centered south of the territory of the Soviet Union in the direction of the Indian Ocean." Molotov took the position that he could not take a "definite stand" on this without Stalin's agreement. In response to a written German draft four powers agreement, Stalin presented a written counterproposal, including the Soviets joining the four power Axis if Germany foreclosed acting in the Soviet's sphere of influence. Germany never responded the counterproposal. January 1941 Border and Commercial Agreement On January 10, 1941, Germany and the Soviet Union signed an agreement that settled several ongoing issues. The agreement formally set the border between Germany and the Soviet Union between the Igorka river and the Baltic Sea, It extended trade regulation of the 1940 German-Soviet Commercial Agreement until August 1, 1942, increased deliveries above the levels of year one of that agreement, settled trading rights in the Baltics and Bessarabia, calculated the compensation for German property interests in the Baltic States now occupied by the Soviets and other issues. It also covered the migration to Germany within two and a half months of ethnic Germans and German citizens in Soviet-held Baltic territories, and the migration to the Soviet Union of Baltic and "White Russian" "nationals" in German-held territories. Secret protocols in the new agreement stated that Germany would renounce its claims to one piece of Lithuanian territory in the "Secret Additional Protocols" of the German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty and would be paid 7.5 million dollars (). The agreements provided the USSR with new weapons, while in return it provided Germany with a million tons of feed grains, nine hundred thousand tons of oil, half a million tons of phosphate,