Representatives of the agri-business sector are worried they might have been tricked by the recent free trade negotiations with the United States. According to Mario Mendez, the economic editor of Hoy, they feel this way because before and after the talks were finished, the negotiation team gave assurances that the DR?s agri-business sector would be protected from items that received subsidies from the US Government. They were allegedly told: ?Don?t worry. There are no problems with the products that receive a subsidy from the US Government. The agreement protects Dominican producers from the entry of subsidized products from the US.? Even with these promises the local producers were dubious, and requested copies of the documents, which were not forthcoming, and received excuse after excuse. Frustrated by this, the producers were able to obtain a copy by going outside of the proper channels. To their surprise, they found out that they were not protected form the subsidized products from the United States, or, put in other words, any protection given in the document is very weak. The key issue seems to be the following: The protection that was given covered only those products that received a subsidy for export, but nothing was said about those agricultural products that received subsidies for their production. Moreover, the protection offered for the products that receive export subsidies was extended for only one year, and in exceptional cases for four years. Dominican poultry and rice farmers are worried that they will not withstand the entry of these imported products, which are heavily subsidized in the US. According to Mendez, Industry & Commerce Minister Sonia Guzman admitted in a meeting she held with the local producers that no consideration was given to the impact that the subsidized products from the US would have on local producers in the Dominican Republic. The producers also worry that precedents set by these negotiations will seriously affect similar negotiations with other countries and the European Union, where subsidies are also widespread. Currently, the hope of the producers is that President Mejia will not sign the agreement and a renegotiation will allow these issues to be dealt with in a more favorable manner.
While producers will be affected, the free trade agreement stipulations will reduce prices for Dominican consumers who stand to gain considerably, as imports are much less costly than many of the farm items, including rice, produced here.