2003News

A high price to pay to get considered for FTA?

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has agreed to consider the Dominican Republic for inclusion into the FTA talks with Central America. The announcement was made in a joint statement and follows a series of concessions made by the Dominican Republic as it seeks to court the US?s favor. 
Last year when the DR was omitted from the Central American discussions, free-trade zone sectors here became concerned that the DR would be affected by a similar situation as that which occurred when Mexico entered NAFTA and was able to offer more advantageous conditions to manufacturers. The outcry from these sectors motivated the government to do an about-face and concede to the US, so as not to be left out of the trade negotiations underway. Not wanting to take any chances this time, manufacturers went so far as to renounce all positions contrary to US interests, even those in favor of Dominican interests, including a trade position that will augment the local cost of AIDS antiretroviral medicines by 80 percent. 
In the joint statement issued by the Office of the United States Trade
Representative on 6 March, following meetings in Santo Domingo, the trade negotiator for the United States says: ?The United States has taken note of the positive direction that President Mejia is actively working to take Dominican trade policy [in]. The United States also appreciates the effort demonstrated by the Dominican Republic toward building a solid record of cooperation with the United States on important trade issues.?
The statement concludes that the US may now consider the Dominican
Republic for inclusion in the FTA, by saying, ??The United States expressed its willingness to consider options, such as docking the Dominican Republic to the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), at the appropriate time.?
The USTR also allows that the US has agreed to expand the dialogue under the TIC and to keep the Dominican government up to date on developments in the CAFTA negotiations.
The joint statement coincides with a decree whereby the Dominican government gives in to US pressures to favor pharmaceutical companies. If implemented, new industrial property guidelines will increase the cost of medicines, such as the antiretrovirals needed to contain the AIDS virus, by at least 80 percent. Since 2001, the local prices of these medicines had declined from US$10,000 per patient per year to about US$2,400, as a result of local competition consistent with the rules of the World Trade Organization. Former trade negotiator Federico Cuello says that the new Mejia government decision will affect 238,000 Dominicans affected by AIDS.
To get the USTR favor, the Dominican government accepted to scrap the compulsory licensing provisions enacted by law since the year 2000, as well as to restrict parallel imports well beyond what is possible under WTO agreements and Dominican legislation. If this situation is not reversed, the DR will have implemented an unconstitutional measure. Paradoxically, these provisions had been recognized in the year 2001 by the Ministers in the Doha Ministerial Conference of the WTO, which adopted a Declaration on Public Health and Intellectual Property promoted by Brazil with the support of the Dominican Republic, India, South Africa and most of the WTO membership. Only the US and Japan opposed the declaration, but were inclined to accept it in order to obtain the consensus required for the launch of the new round of trade negotiations.
See the USTR release at http://ustr.gov/releases/2003/03/2003-03-07-joint-dominican.PDF