Asunton Coñgresso
The US Senate has cleared legislation (H.R. 434) extending new trade preferences to over 70 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and Central America, sending it on for the president’s signature, according to House Floor Leader Oscar Babauta.
The bill is designed at stimulating economic development through increased trade opportunities. It received strong bipartisan support in the US Congress despite vocal opponents’ of the measure arguing it would cost US textile jobs.
Babauta noted that under the legislation, the 24 Caribbean Basin Initiative beneficiaries would get duty-free and quota-free access to the US market for apparel made with US fabric and yarn. The goal is to allow CBI nations additional trade benefits through 2008 and put these countries in a better position to compete with Mexico’s North American Free Trade Agreement benefits.
He further noted that apparel imports from Africa made from US fabric and yarn would be eligible for duty-free and quota-free access with no limits under the legislation. The measure has special rules where the least developed sub-Saharan African countries would be able to get duty-free and quota-free treatment for apparel made with third-country fabric for four years, he related.
“This is all very interesting in the sense that pro-labor members of Congress such as Senator Daniel Akaka have worked the hills to deny the CNMI its Headnote 3-A privilege on finished apparel products entering US markets quota and duty-free”, Babauta noted.
“If our national policymakers can encourage, through the recently approved H.R. 434, avenues for increased trade with foreign trade partners, perhaps there’s also the need to review granting the same privilege to the CNMI on an indefinite basis,” he said, adding, “this is the most appropriate time to remove punitive attitudes against our apparel industry here. It has sustained a steady and sturdy flow of much needed revenues in the midst of the devastating effects of the Asian Flu”.
“I am confident that through time and local efforts our detractors would be able to see if the issue is purely economics, then they have to be magnanimous for both foreign trading partners and its very own under the US flag”, he pointed out. “This issue obviously needs refinement and we will work to convey our viewpoints in much the same manner that the recent General Accounting Office (GAO) report has explained the substantive role of the apparel industry here and the direct and residual benefits it has brought to the CNMI”.
“Finally, in the absence of realistic industry substitutes, detractors from within and without must temper politically correct rhetoric to the realistic level,” he said.
“If you don’t have anything solid by way of alternatives, not only must one learn to shut up, but wake up too!” Babauta said that detractors “must come to grips with the negative impact its agenda has rendered these islands, the net effect being investment instability at a time when we were leveled by the effects of the Asian Crisis. We hope to see brighter days ahead as we work to rebuild the ruined bridge of investments”.
Meanwhile, Babauta took issue with the Variety’s recent story which depicted him as pro-abortion in an article last Monday.
“The discussion in the leadership meeting had nothing to do with a measure filed permanently in the last legislature,” he pointed out. “I wasn’t even contacted for verification if the legislation is the issue under discussion”.
Said he: “But then distortion and fabricated quotes must be a new form of journalism of the Variety and thanks to the Tribune for an exemplary job on straight news reporting. At least, we have a better alternative.”
