Foreign Minister Eduardo Latorre yesterday called for a strategic trade alliance between the DR, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the members of the Central American Community (CCA) to confront jointly emerging trade challenges. Latorre promoted the idea at the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of CARICOM, CCA and the DR being held this week in Georgetown, Guyana. He pointed out that most of the region will lose its special trade preferences from the European Union (EU) in the year 2000, and that the U.S.’s Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) trade benefits are slated to disappear in 2005. With increasing trade friction and confrontations between the U.S. and the EU in the global theater, and growing competition for the global trade and investment pie, the DR, CARICOM and CCA need to make common cause in order to increase their bargaining leverage vis-?-vis other global trade actors.
