FTAs for All-- but Haiti

At long last, the Haitian community thought there'd been some progress on Capitol Hill. After two years of negotiation (or neglect), Chairman Thomas and Ranking Member Rangel of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives introduced, for the first time, the Haiti HOPE Act. That's the Haiti Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, for those who struggle with obscure acronyms.

The bill, which included provisions for the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), as well as the HOPE Act, tried to do too much, and soured many republicans with textile heavy districts (even some who voted in favor of CAFTA).

The Senate abound with rumors of tax riders and other initiatives that clearly signaled HOPE's fate had already been decided.

Monday, HOPE was added to the suspension calendar for a vote later in the week, yet it was stripped before day's end. Haiti supporters were frantic trying to grasp what had just happened. But no one had an answer.

It's alarming that certain FTA's, such as CAFTA, the recently passed Oman FTA, and the soon to be voted on Peru FTA receive the full support of the House and Administration. In July of 2005, the White House even sent then-USTR Rob Portman to Capitol Hill to fight for CAFTA. Yet, offering this greatly needed economic stimulus to the poorest nations on the plant, all of a sudden send up red flags, as if they would shatter our struggling textile industry.

The HERO Act, which I wrote about in my blog post on April 2, 2006, and the HOPE Act would have only changed the proportion of foreign textile imports, not the overall quantity. HERO, for example, would have granted Haiti access to 1.5% of the overall quantity of imports. HOPE would have started a 1% of the aggregate and increased by 25 basis points each year over four years. Not exactly huge sums. But nevertheless...

Moreover, these bills were not giveaways. Haiti had numerous challenges before any agreement could be ratified. Both bills required that Haiti initiate a number of regulatory reforms that were by no means small feats.

Just like its predecessor, HERO, HOPE too seems to have met its end.