ISDS Case Map
CAFTA
US - Central America Free Trade Agreement
Workers of the Salvadorian maquilas Friday expressed their concern on the prompt implementation of the Free Trade Area (FTA) with the US.
United States ambassador to the country, Hans Hertell, handed over to Industry and Commerce minister Francisco Javier Garcia, six studies that focus on strengthening competitiveness of equal number of productive sectors, with a view on the Free Trade Agreement. “I am here to deliver these six studies by sector, which describe new and ample opportunities,” said Hertell.
A US free trade pact with Central America, already delayed by a legal wrangle, has run into further trouble at presidential elections in Costa Rica where voters punished the main pro-trade candidate.
A Nobel Peace Prize winner who supports a free-trade agreement with the United States was favored in pre-election polls as Costa Ricans chose a new president on Sunday. He faced a rival who said the pact would hurt farmers.
As President Bush touted the benefits of free trade in his State of the Union address, protests filled the streets of San Salvador on Jan. 31 in the latest of a string of events demonstrating the continued failure of the US-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA).
The U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement that was supposed to take effect Jan. 1 is being held up by the U.S. because some of the countries involved have yet to recognize U.S. meat-inspection procedures as valid.
United States Under-Secretary for the Western Hemisphere Patrick Duddy affirmed last night while visiting the Congress that the Free Trade Agreement will be greatly beneficial to the Dominican Republic and other co-signing countries.
The Central American Free Trade agreement faces skepticism and negative sentiment in countries working to implement the pact.
A key argument used by US transnationals and the Bush administration to pass the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)--that Central American countries themselves needed and wanted the agreement--has broken down on the eve of implementation of the controversial pact. This is a summary of the status of CAFTA implementation in each country.
Growing anti-trade sentiment in several Central American countries has held up a trade agreement with the United States that was slated to launch Jan. 1.
