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– Says Region pleased U.S. managed to get WTO waiver until 2014
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo said he has asked United States President Barack Obama to expand the range of products that can be exported by CARICOM countries to the U.S. market duty-free, and for an expansion of the list of countries than can benefit from such an agreement under the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA).
President Jagdeo, who presented CARICOM’s position on a wide range of issues during a high level meeting late Friday night with the U.S. President, said he also asked for a new focus on the definition of the ‘rules of origin’ for products covered under CBERA.
The Guyanese Head of State said he also told President Obama how pleased the Regional leaders were that the U.S. has finally managed to get a World Trade Organisation (WTO) waiver for CBERA to be extended to 2014.
There were uncertainties shrouding CARICOM-U.S. trade relations but these were removed when, on March 24, 2009, the WTO Council for Trade in Goods approved the long standing waiver request from the U.S. on the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act.
The approval of the waiver which will remain valid until 2014 now provides the legal authorization for CARICOM to export goods covered under CBERA to the U.S. duty-free.
CARICOM beneficiaries of CBERA preferences are Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Montserrat and Saint Kitts-Nevis.
The U.S. unilateral, non-reciprocal trade preferences available to the Caribbean were established under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), which was initially launched in 1983 through the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA).
Those preferences were later expanded in 2000 through the U.S.-Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA), in 2006 (and later in 2008) by the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act.
To operate legally under the World Trade Organization (WTO), the CBERA and CBTPA required a waiver approved by all other WTO Members.
The previous waiver on CBERA expired on 31 December, 2005, but the request by the U.S. for the renewal of the waiver was blocked because of objection from a number of WTO members, chief among them being Paraguay.
The Caribbean Community has been deeply concerned about preserving long standing preferences within the context of multilateral negotiations and CARICOM was reportedly worried about the implication that the U.S. may not give due consideration to addressing the speed and degree of the erosion of preferences such as CBERA during the WTO negotiations.
Therefore, notwithstanding the benefit realized in the renewal of the WTO waiver, it is felt that CARICOM countries will need to sustain their lobbying efforts to ensure that their objectives and needs will not be prejudiced during the multilateral process.
President Jagdeo indicated that those lobbying efforts continued during the meeting with Obama and the regional leaders on Friday night, when he raised three important issues regarding CBERA.
“I have asked for three things to happen: First of all, that they expand the list of items that benefit from preferences there, so other countries like Trinidad and Tobago can get their oil products there (to the U.S.) under that agreement.
“Secondly, we have asked for the number of beneficiary countries to be expanded because not all Caribbean countries are beneficiaries, and thirdly that we focus on the rules of origin for some of our products such as our garment industry…,” President Jagdeo told a news conference last Saturday evening in Port-of-Spain.
