Clinton’s Caribbean Basin Initiative

President Clinton’s new Caribbean Basin Initiative announced last Friday
(March 5) would provide 100 percent duty-free treatment of textile and apparel
products–double the 50 percent duty-free treatment he proposed last year.

The increase is reportedly to take into account the economic situation that
the region faces because of the hurricanes that hit the region last year. The
benefits apply from October 1, 1999 to June 30, 2001 and include textile
products assembled from US fabric containing US yarn.

We appreciate the fact that President Clinton has immersed himself in economic
details over the past six years–in concert with Federal Reserve Board

Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers,
the youngest tenured economics professor in Harvard history–and developed
within him a framework “to do what was best for the global economy”.

Nevertheless, nowhere in his policy to keep the US economy healthy is included
the economic fate of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas whose economy
has been ravaged on nearly all corners by the Asian crisis not to mention the
lethal effects of instability encouraged by a federal takeover plan of the
islands. As such, investors now on island have decided to downsize while
prospective investors have decided to head elsewhere. The latter has wreaked
havoc in encouraging lasting investments. It is completely contrary to the

President’s policy on wealth and jobs creation.

The CNMI is situated in the typhoon belt area and occasionally the victim of
the destructive force of supertyphoons. The aftermath of a supertyphoon sends
most everybody in both sectors through a period of reconstruction, salvaging
what’s left after a heavy wind-driven rain destroyed both residential areas
and businesses. News of impending storm shuts down business operations for at
least a week to a month’s time. Recovery is gradual and it is especially
difficult for the business sector.

If anything, this is the one time in our developmental history where similar
initiative could be formulated to assist the NMI muddle through this difficult
times. After all, it is the fiduciary responsibility of the federal
government to assist the NMI “attain a progressively higher standard of
living” under the terms and conditions of the Covenant Agreement. The Clinton

Administration has failed the NMI in this regard and perhaps it is high time
that the president reviews the adolescent and destructive policy his US

Department of Interior henchmen have taken against the NMI.

We hope that in his last two years in office, President Clinton would realign
his policy of wealth and jobs creation so that it is equally made applicable
in every jurisdiction rather than allow Interior to funnel money unfairly to
its “favorite constituency”. Fair is fair and we ask for nothing less than a
share of that fairness as a member of the greater American Economic Community.