Taipei Times: What's the main purpose of your visit to Taipei? Has your trip been triggered by the recent allegations that the Taiwanese-invested Chentex textile factory (正太紡織廠) in Nicaragua has trampled the rights of workers?
Norman J. Caldera Cardenal: The main purpose of the visit is to strengthen the ties in trade and investment that Nicaragua has had with the Republic of China on Taiwan.
As you know, the balance of trade between the two countries is very heavily in favor of Taiwan. So we have been trying to look for ways to even out the situation, and we want to look at the possibilities of exporting products such as beef to Taiwan. And we also want to find ways to cooperate on Taiwanese investment or joint ventures to make use of facilities afforded by the new CBI, which is the enhanced Caribbean Base Initiative of the US.
[The US' Caribbean Basin Initiative gives trade incentives and increased economic aid to eligible countries in the Caribbean basin and central America. New initiatives in 1999, for example, removed tariffs and quotas from apparel entering the US that was manufactured in eligible CBI countries from US yarns and fabric. Eligibility is also linked to items such as a country's progress on worker rights.]
The distinct feature of the CBI is that there are a lot of products there that were not reckoned in the previous initiative. However, those products require a much higher value-added content. That means unless we incorporate some raw materials from Nicaragua, the use of these facilities would be difficult. We've also had discussions with some industry leaders in leather as well as watch-making areas [in Taiwan] on the possibility of accessing the US market to a degree by going to Nicaragua and having their products value-added there.
Of course when you talk about Nicaragua-Taiwan relations, it's inevitable to link the labor situation with the free trade zones in Nicaragua. Because what happens is that any country that starts to increase exports of garments to the US as far as Nicaragua has been doing, becomes a target for the US labor federation. If they do not find anything wrong, they invent it. But they will come up with a complaint about any country that grows fast. It's like an automatic trigger mechanism. Any time that a country is increasing its exports to the US, it becomes a target or an objective for them. So the objective conditions of that country are secondary. What we have to make sure of is that we do not give them any reason to come up with something. And this is what we have been working [on] with our partners in the manufacturing sector, to make sure that they have no excuses.
TT: Last October, former US trade representative Charlene Barshefsky wrote to the Nicaraguan government demanding that conditions be improved at Chentex and Mil Colores, a US-owned factory. She also set a deadline of this June for a US-Nicaragua discussion on worker rights. What's the latest development as of now?
Caldera: As you know, Barshefsky has been replaced. We have had a few preliminary contacts with the current trade representative Robert Zoellick. We have had contacts with Barshefsky's deputy, who is no longer there, either. We have a series of requirements to fulfill and labor certification is one of them. But it's one of the many issues that we have to discuss with the US. So far we have been complying with every one of the requirements that they have put [forward]. So far we have had no complaints from the US trade negotiators on our compliance.
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