CARICOM Trade Ministers, USTR Portman to meet

CHRIST CHURCH, BARBADOS – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Trade Ministers are to meet with United States Trade Representative Rob Portman in Washington, D.C., April 12. In addition to Member State delegations, the CARICOM Secretary-General H.E. Edwin Carrington and the Director-General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) Ambassador Dr. Richard Bernal will also participate in the meeting. The expectation on the part of CARICOM is that US-CARICOM trade issues, the status of Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations, and the status and outlook for the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Development Agenda (DDA) are topics that will constitute the focus of the meeting’s agenda. Agreement that this encounter take place came following a request for it at a two-day meeting of CARICOM Foreign Ministers and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Nassau, The Bahamas, last month. A Joint Statement issued March 22, at the close of that meeting, called for an “early meeting” of CARICOM Trade Ministers and their US counterpart. In response to the uncertainty over the last two years surrounding the resumption and conclusion of FTAA negotiations, CARICOM countries have been re-assessing their strategic options in the Hemisphere. An important consideration for CARICOM is the future of trade programs such as the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA) and the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA) - known collectively as the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) - that are of limited duration. Furthermore, the US is a major trading partner for CARICOM countries, by far their largest export market. The regional private sector has established strong commercial links in the US market. Complementing these commercial ties, the role of the US as a source of investment in CARICOM continues to grow in importance. As regards on-going WTO Doha Round negotiations, Small Vulnerable Economies like those of CARICOM have particular concerns and interests. They have a vested interest in how several issues are being treated within the negotiating agenda, including: Trade Preferences, the Small Economies Work Programme, Special and Differential Treatment, Services, Agriculture (in particular Special Products and Special Safeguard Mechanism), Non-Agricultural Market Access (formula that is sensitive to their interest in preserving policy space for future developmental purposes), and ‘Aid for Trade.’ CARICOM countries have called for a demonstrated commitment on the part of the ‘big players’ to ensure that the interests of the WTO’s smallest, most vulnerable Members are not compromised further in the negotiating agenda; and importantly that the ‘development deficit’ that has stained WTO talks since their inception be rectified. The Caribbean has had to confront a negotiating agenda hamstrung by issues the ‘big players’ are front-loading, which have placed at risk efforts to anchor development issues and a ‘development approach’ in the negotiating agenda.