Catholic Leaders Urge Congress to Make Trade Pacts with Poor Nations

U.S. Catholic leaders have urged Congress to give countries such as Haiti and Bolivia continued preferential consideration when making trade policy.

During a June 12 hearing before the U.S. Senate's Finance Committee, Oblate Father Andrew Small, foreign policy adviser for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said existing preferential trade programs for Haiti and Bolivia have helped to provide jobs in the two countries, both of which have staggering unemployment and citizens who live in abject poverty.

The USCCB supports the long-term extensions of a global trade policy that gives preference to poor nations for moral and economic reasons, Father Small said in his testimony before the Senate panel.

"The moral measure of any society is how it cares for and gives preference to its most vulnerable members," he said. "In a special way, our trade preference programs specify and express this link between trade and development, a link that can benefit from closer scrutiny by this committee."

With two of the more than 130 U.S. trade preference programs set to expire this year and the rest in coming years, the Senate Finance Committee is exploring which nations will benefit most from the initiatives and if short-term or long-term extensions are more effective, said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the committee.

"For us and for our neighbors, we cannot let these programs expire," Baucus said. "But for us and for our neighbors, we must make our preference programs the best that they can be."

Trade preference programs have expanded in number and scope over the past three decades in an effort to promote and achieve various U.S. foreign policy objectives, said Loren Yager, director of the international affairs and trade team of the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

"The purpose of these programs is to foster economic development through increased trade with qualified beneficiary countries while not harming U.S. domestic producers," Yager said in his testimony. "Trade preference programs extend unilateral tariff reductions to over 130 developing countries."

Currently, the United States offers the Generalized System of Preferences and three regional programs, the Caribbean Basin Initiative, the Andean Trade Preference Act, or ATPDEA, and the African Growth and Opportunity Act, he said.

Special preferences for Haiti became part of the Caribbean Basin Initiative with the ratification in 2006 of the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, known as HOPE, Yager said.

Since the act was ratified, more than 5,000 apparel assembly jobs have been created for Haitians, Father Small said.

"This modest achievement is nevertheless significant," he said. "It reverses a long decline in Haiti's apparel sector. HOPE is bringing new life to thousands of people whose lives had become desperate.

"It has given hope to hardworking Haitians who chose to remain in their homeland during these difficult times and needed a lift up to take advantage of new opportunities presented by greater political stability and a more attractive investment climate," the priest said.

U.S. trade preference initiatives also have helped Bolivia increase its exportation of palm hearts to American markets in recent years, a key ingredient in promoting alternative crops for the South American nation to replace coca, Father Small said.

"We continue to urge long-term extension of ATPDEA when it expires in December of this year," he said. "In the case of Bolivia, ATPDEA has been vital in promoting economic development for thousands of people."

In studying the current U.S. trade preference programs, Grant Aldonas, principal managing director of the independent consulting firm Split Rock International of Arlington, Va., testified the system should be reassessed in terms of the needs of each country and recommended that U.S. development assistance should not flow through the recipient governments.

"We should concentrate on financing private investment and, where needed, building the physical and institutional infrastructure needed to connect people to markets," Aldonas said. "We should, as the Japanese have increasingly done, focus on connecting firms and workers in the developing world to the global supply chains that will allow them to benefit from the growth in the global economy."

Baucus also said the committee doesn't want to help countries who refuse to help themselves.

"We help because it is the right thing to do," he said. "We do it because our programs help others to help themselves. We do it to help build sustainable economies in the developing world. And we help because these programs often work. Singapore, Chile and Korea grew from being beneficiary countries to dynamic global economies."