President Leonel Fernandez yesterday guaranteed that the Free Trade Agreement with the United States would go through. As he spoke at the opening of the EXPO Cibao 2004 in La Barranquita, Santiago, the President told his audience of diplomats, politicians, and industrial and commercial leaders that no single sector of the nation’s economy has the right to endanger the future of the Dominican Republic. As reported in La Informacion, the local Santiago newspaper, Fernandez said that the high fructose corn syrup surcharge represented an obstacle to progress in the country. The hotly-contended surcharge was included at the last minute in the fiscal legislation, in order to protect the sugar industry. The most vocal opponents of the surcharge are the representatives of the Santiago free zone manufacturer sector, who argue that abandoning the FTA would endanger that sector.
Fernandez agrees that the FTA signifies an opportunity for the DR to insert itself into the most important sectors of the US economy.
Fernandez spoke after US Ambassador Hans Hertell had given a keynote speech in which he reasserted the US position that the tax on HFCS symbolized the possible derailment of the FTA, as well as future job losses in local free trade zones and other industries.
Fernandez said that reasonable, democratic and legal means must be found to enter into the US free trade accords. To demonstrate the two nations’ readiness to strike a co-operative deal, Fernandez pointed out to his listeners that Ambassador Hertell was sitting right there beside him.
As reported in the Listin Diario, the President said in Santiago: “I understand that in the hypothetical and remote event that Congress does not pass the amendment to remove the corn syrup tax, when the FTA signed with the USA is studied here, it will become law in the country.”
Fernandez said that, according to the hierarchy of legal instruments, a treaty or agreement is above any other law. Thus, he implied that the FTA could override the corn syrup surcharge provision in the tax reform law that is now to be known as Law 288-04.