Minister of Foreign Relations Carlos Morales Troncoso denied that the DR is among the Latin American countries placing obstacles to the importation of U.S. products.
A press release from Washington D.C. revealed that President Clinton has blacklisted its principal seven trading partners and another six on the American continent obstructing U.S. exports. He said there has been no official complaint from the U.S. government about trade and that the relations between both countries are “excellent”.
He mentioned that it was only recently that the U.S. government increased the Dominican sugar quota. Pedro Caba of Hoy claims that the warning by President Clinton on trade limitations is part of a war that is going on between the D.R. and the U.S., regarding the new rules of the World Trade Organization coming into effect.
He said that the U.S. wants the D.R. to abolish licenses and import permissions, as the Minister of Agriculture promised. The moves have not been enacted as the country is awaiting for its principal trading partners to approve a “technical rectification” submitted by the D.R. to the WTO, involving its agriculture protocol.
The Dominican authorities have promised to fulfill their part once the European Union reaches an agreement in respect to milk, one of the eight products subject to rectification, as already the U.S. has acceded to the sugar, rice, poultry, beans, corn, garlic and onion protocols. The problem is that the GATT continues to allow for subsidies of 64% for agriculture in the developed countries, which affects smaller countries such as the Dominican Republic.
Manuel Guerrero, executive director of the Asociación de Empresas de Inversión Extranjera, said that Mr Clinton’s action could be for political reasons, to attract conservative voters in the next election. Other countries that have been mentioned are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
The D.R. has also been affected by the phyto-sanitary rules of the United States which in turn has affected its exports of fruit, vegetables, and meat. The measure has also affected several large Dominican companies, among them Campo Frío, Induveca, Ja Ja and Bon Agroindustrial. According to the report in the newspaper Hoy, the Dominican agricultural authorities have agreed, as soon as the technical rectification is approved, to abolish the permits and import licenses and apply a transparent system of quotas.
Osmar Benítez, vice president executive of the Junta Empresarial Dominicana, the influential private agricultural sector organization, says that for twenty years the Dominican Republic has had the United States on its blacklist for the frequent phyto-sanitary obstacles its customs place on Dominican imports.
He mentioned the case of Chinese vegetables, of which the country exported US$16 million in 1989, but when these items began to be produced in Florida and Texas, the U.S. customs authorities claimed that there was a horticultural pestilence here, thereby creating an obstacle to Dominican imports, conveniently forgetting that the same problem was endemic in the U.S. This was proven but the ban on the import of Chinese vegetables from the D.R. has yet to be lifted.