Draft Letter to the Editor

 To the Editor:

I am writing to express my strong support for the U.S./Dominican Republic Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which the Congress will soon consider.

Over the past several decades, the United States has deliberately promoted a mutually beneficial trade relationship with Central American and Caribbean Basin countries.  Through this relationship, U.S. and Central American workers and firms have benefited as closer economic ties have generated new markets and export opportunities.  Economic growth has also supported the peace process and fostered democratic reforms throughout the region.

CAFTA represents the next step in the evolution of this trade relationship.  It will transform the current one-way temporary preference program into a comprehensive and permanent, two-way trade partnership.  In doing so, it will create the economic platform on which many U.S., Dominican, and Central American companies, including ours, can compete in the future.

Without CAFTA, this economic partnership falters.  Increased pressures from Asia, particularly on the textile and apparel industry, which has emerged as a key element of this partnership, will lead to job losses and other economic disruption in Central America and the Dominican Republic.  As Central America and the Dominican Republic lose their competitiveness without CAFTA, they lose the ability to purchase U.S. goods and services, which harms companies like ours.  Moreover, economic disruption in Central America fosters instability in that region, which, in turn, undermines the fragile democratic institutions we have worked so hard to create in our own backyard.

Congress must approve the CAFTA as soon as possible.