Dr-Cafta Trade Agreement
The official start of negotiations was announced on 8 January 2003 in Washington D.C. by the United States Trade Representative and the Ministers of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, and negotiations between the United States and four of the Central American countries were concluded on 17 December 2003. An agreement was concluded between Costa Rica and the United States on 25 January 2004. In January 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush declared CAFTA a priority and was given the power to negotiate it by Congress. Negotiations began in January 2003 and an agreement was reached with El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua on 17 December 2003 and with Costa Rica on 25 January 2004. In the same month, DCFTA accession negotiations began with the Dominican Republic. As part of the negotiations, national action plans for trade capacity-building were developed for each of the Central American countries. These national action plans identify needs and priorities for trade-related technical assistance.
These documents were presented to government agencies, international organizations and businesses, as well as NGOs with tools and facilities to meet these needs. Documents were also produced describing sources of support for trade capacity-building. When the agreement entered into force with each country, more than half of U.S. agricultural exports received immediate duty-free access, including beef, soybeans, cotton, wheat, many high-quality fruits and vegetables, and processed food products. Tariffs on most other U.S. agricultural products will expire within 15 years. All tariffs will be abolished in 20 years. DCFTA-DR requires that tariffs and quotas be managed in a transparent, non-discriminatory, market- and trade-oriented manner and that importers can take full advantage of them.
Each Member State will eliminate export subsidies for agricultural products destined for another DCFTA-DR country. [9] CaFTA-DR is the first free trade agreement between the United States and a small group of developing countries. It was created with the aim of creating new and better economic opportunities through the opening of markets, the elimination of tariffs, the removal of barriers to services and much more. In 2015, total reciprocal trade was estimated at $53 billion. [1] Almost all Central American exports to the United States were already duty-free thanks to the 1984 Caribbean Basin Initiative. A decade ago, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative sold the CAFTA as the « best trade deal ever made on labor » and boasted of « world-class » labor regulations. These provisions could not prevent the murder of 68 Guatemalan trade unionists during the seven years of the pact without a single arrest.
In 2008, the AFL-CIO and Guatemalan unions filed a formal complaint under caFTA`s labor regulations, calling for an end to rampant anti-union violence, wage theft and other abuses. It was only six years and dozens of union murders later that the U.S. government went to arbitration in this case. The U.S. lost this case, proving that the model of labor standards in U.S. trade agreements is deeply flawed. (If a case related to the serious and endemic violence against unionists in Guatemala cannot be won, where could a case under these rules succeed?…) Even today, Guatemalan unionized workers suffer frequent attacks with impunity. In Guatemala, mass protests were violently repressed by the government, and in Costa Rica there were strikes against the trade deal. In addition, many Catholic bishops in Central America and the United States rejected the treaty, as did many social movements in the region. (Comparative Politics of Latin America (page 469), Daniel C. Hellinger) Costa Rica held a referendum so that its citizens could choose whether or not to approve the DCFTA. On 7 October 2007, Costa Ricans voted in favour of the agreement.
On 30 September 2008, the DCFTA-DR countries agreed to set the deadline for Costa Rica to implement the Agreement in accordance with Art. 22.5.2 until January 1, 2009. On 14 November 2008, Costa Rica adopted the final bill to implement CAFTA-DR. The Free Trade Agreement between the Dominican Republic, Central America and the United States (CAFTA-DR) entered into force for Costa Rica on 1 January 2009. The agreement is a treaty under international law, but not under the U.S. Constitution, because in the U.S., laws require majority approval in both chambers, while treaties only require a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Under U.S. law, CAFTA-DR is an agreement between Congress and the executive branch. Dominican Republic joins CAFTA negotiations In November 2003, the United States announced that it would join the negotiations.
On the 12th. In January 2004, the United States and the Dominican Republic launched the first of three rounds of negotiations on the Dominican Republic`s integration into THE CAFTA. Negotiations were concluded on 15 March 2004 and the draft agreement was published on 9 April. El Salvador was the first CAFTA country in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to ratify the agreement and have it adopted by Congress on 17 December 2004. Honduras ratified the agreement on 3 March 2005 and Guatemala on 10 March 2005. The U.S. Congress approved the agreement in July and the President signed it on August 2, 2005. Nicaragua ratified it on 10 October 2005. On 6 September 2005, the Chamber of Deputies of the Dominican Republic approved the CAFTA of the Dominican Republic and sent the agreement to the President for signature. On the 28th.
In February 2006, the President of the United States issued Proclamation 7987 implementing the Free Trade Agreement between the Dominican Republic, Central America and the United States. For more information on the CAFTA-DR Agreement, please contact the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. With the addition of the Dominican Republic, the trade group`s largest economy, the REGION COVERED BY CAFTA-DR is the second largest Latin American export market for U.S. producers, behind Mexico, which purchased goods worth $29 billion in 2015. Bilateral trade amounted to about $50 billion in the same year. Free Trade Agreement between Central America and the Dominican Republic (CAFTA-Dominican REPUBLIC), a trade agreement signed in 2004 to progressively eliminate most tariffs, duties and other barriers to trade in goods and services between the countries of Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the United States. .