El Salvador in US free trade deal

[cal04]

The US has formally agreed a free trade pact with El Salvador but has told five more Central American nations that they must do more to finalise similar deals. Congress sanctioned a Central American Free Trade Agreement (Cafta) last year but official implementation has been delayed by a series of legal wrangles.

The US complained that Cafta partners were failing to harmonise key laws and regulations, as obliged by the treaty. But the US-El Salvador agreement will now come into force on 1 March.

Sticking points
The announcement, by the US Trade Representative's office, came ahead of a meeting between US President George W Bush and his Salvadorean counterpart Antonio Saca. Washington has urged Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic to make greater efforts to bring domestic regulations into line with multilateral standards required by the treaty.

Rules governing meat inspection remain a major sticking point. The US views certain countries' reluctance to recognise its own system as equivalent to their own as a barrier to its exports. Critics of Cafta - designed to reduce trade barriers between the US and Central America - have claimed that the US has made unreasonable demands in certain areas. We hope and expect that we will be able to bring additional Cafta partners into the agreement soon," Rob Portman, the US Trade Representative said on Friday. Costa Rica has yet to ratify the agreement.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4749396.stm

[EFerrari]

1. On behalf of Salvadorans and their descendents everywhere

I apologize to the sane, real world.

:(

[GRLMGC]

2. Are you Salvadoran?

I've finally found another one on DU!

[EFerrari]

4. Yep!

:)

[GRLMGC]

6. Awesome

There's 2 of us, haha :)

[EFerrari]

10. Oh, I bet we have some cousins cruising around here some where.

:hi:

[VirginiaDem]

3. Are the Central Americans saying that their

meat inspection systems are superior to ours? Because I've been to my fair share of Central American meat markets and I'm not so sure...

[EFerrari]

5. No, they're saying that they don't want the United States

to dictate to them and are telling us to go cheney ourselves as quietly as possible.

That's why I apologize for El Salvador who doesn't seem to be able to do that. :)

[GRLMGC]

7. I've been thinking a lot about the civil war

I don't think anything's changed which makes all those deaths seem so pointless. I feel as though El Salvador's government is a puppet for the US just like before.

[EFerrari]

11. I don't know very much about the current situation there

because at some point it became too painful to keep up with it. My family is split right down the middle politically. :(

At one point, it looked like my brother would have to go down there in uniform to fight my cousins. :scared:

/typing, schmiping

[GRLMGC]

12. its very Americanized

Like, you'll see all kinds of American chains and they only use the dollar. There's no more colon. All my family is on the left in my case (although I think some of my relatives still living there are conservative)

[VirginiaDem]

13. No, I was asking about the specific

sticking point in the negotiations about the meat markets.

[EFerrari]

14. Sure, I get it. But, I think in that region every issue becomes

the same issue -- in a sense.

Heck, in 1968, my cousins regaled me with stories of how much the United States was resented.

And that was in El Salvador.

And that was nearly 40 years ago, when our government at least pretended that it respected other nations. :(

[54anickel]

8. Wonder if dollarization is one of the unmentioned sticking points?

Didn't El Salvador switch to full dollarization back in '01? I found this old article on it, but I haven't kept up on the currency markets in South America :shrug:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/dollar/green.htm

[GRLMGC]

9. yes it did nt