Senate Committee to Hear CAFTA Debate
03/18/2005
Doreen Hemlock,
South Florida Sun - Sentinel
The battle over U.S. free trade with the Dominican Republic and Central America is going public on Capitol Hill.
The Senate Finance Committee set an April 6 date for a hearing on the seven-nation agreement known as DR-CAFTA, the first step in what's widely expected to be a fierce fight that could influence global trade talks and plans for free trade across the Americas.
The Bush administration had been postponing action on CAFTA in Congress until it could gain support from the U.S. pharmaceutical industry.
Brand-name drugmakers first wanted Guatemala to reverse a law eroding protections on drug-testing data. Guatemala's Congress did so last week, despite protests that the move would delay access to generic drugs for the poor.
Even so, the administration still appears to lack enough Republican votes to pass DR-CAFTA, which aims to boost the struggling economies and nascent democracies of U.S. neighbors facing competition from low-cost China, analysts said Thursday in Miami.
A key opponent: the U.S. sugar industry, which opposes increased sugar imports from Central America.
"Big Sugar can still apparently buy about 30 votes. Sugar is spreading the money around liberally," said Richard Feinberg, professor of international economic policy at the University of California-San Diego, a Democrat who backs CAFTA.
Feinberg said he is working on a program on labor standards and protections in Central America that could garner support for DR-CAFTA from Democrats in Congress, who worry about union backing.
At stake is more than an exchange of duty-free goods but the future of a strategic alliance, Feinberg said. "For it to be defeated would in effect de-legitimize pro-democratic, pro-business Central America," he said.
Other countries would refuse to craft complex trade agreements with Washington if they can't be approved, he added.
The Bush administration aims for a vote on DR-CAFTA before the summer recess.A group of South Florida executives is lobbying Florida members of Congress this week to support the pact. Among their arguments: Without DR-CAFTA, there'll be no free-trade pact for the Americas and no chance for Miami to win its bid for that pact's headquarters.
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