The Bush administration reached an agreement on expanding free trade in Latin America, giving four Central American countries duty-free access to the vast US market and holding out the promise of cheaper prices for US consumers.
The agreement reached Wedne-sday, which must be approved by Congress, would represent America's sixth free trade agreement -- deals to eliminate all barriers to trade -- and was modeled along the lines of the decade-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) linking the US, Mexico and Canada.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement or CAFTA, will cover Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
A fifth nation, Costa Rica, abruptly left the negotiations on Tuesday, complaining that the US was demanding too much in the way of removing barriers that prevent foreign competition in the telecommunications and insurance industries. But the administration said it hoped to include that country within the next few weeks before CAFTA is sent to Congress.
US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick called CAFTA a milestone along the way to the admin-istration's big prize of a 34-nation Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, covering all countries in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba.
But opponents blasted the deal as a continuation of failed trade policies exhibited by NAFTA, which they contend have cost the country thousands of manufacturing jobs and contributed to a string of record-breaking trade deficits.
Trade is expected to be a major issue in next year's presidential race with Bush's Democratic opponents charging that the administration has failed to provide help to a US manufacturing sector that has suffered 40 consecutive months of job losses that have wiped out 2.8 million jobs.
The administration did negotiate special provisions to protect domestic textile manufacturers and sugar beet and sugar cane farmers, but officials in both industries said they were concerned that the deals still went too far in opening their sectors to foreign competition.
For sugar, the four Central American countries will see their current quota of 111,000 tonnes of sugar that they can ship to the US rise by 85,000 tonnes next year and then increase by 2 percent per year for the next 15 years. The amount of the US market supplied by the Central American countries would total about 1 percent in the first year of the deal and rise to 1.4 percent at the end of 15 years.
The administration, however, hailed CAFTA as a victory that will provide American consumers with access to cheaper prices on imports of such items as clothing and shoes while boosting the fortunes of US exporters by tearing down foreign barriers.
An administration fact sheet said that once the agreement takes effect, 80 percent of US exports of manufactured goods and more than 50 percent of US agricultural products will be able to enter the four nations duty free with other tariffs on more sensitive items phased out more gradually.
The longest phaseout for the United States will cover dairy products at 20 years, and tariffs protecting poultry and rice will not disappear for 18 years.
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