President Leonel Fernandez leaves today for the United States, with a first stop in New York continuing on to Washington, D.C. to lobby for US congressional passing of the free trade agreement signed along with five Central American countries. On 11 May, he is scheduled to meet with President Bush and the presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. The DR-CAFTA summit seeks to build momentum for the passing of the DR-CAFTA bill in the US Congress. El Caribe calls this trip “one of the most difficult” the President has undertaken.
Even in the Dominican Republic, the DR-CAFTA legislation is facing some opposition. Last Wednesday the Dominican Senate called for the urgent approval of fiscal and other compensations to protect local industries. A full-page announcement in the Listin Diario today says that the Senate has resolved to declare the approval of fiscal and non-fiscal measures to be of the highest national interest, in order to allow local production to remain competitive within the framework of a free trade scenario. In the second place, the legislators said that the approval of the DR-CAFTA will depend upon the approval of the compensatory measures. Finally, the Senate said that they would continue to hold hearings on the issues at hand.