Former Ag Secretaries Support CAFTA

All former U.S. Secretaries of Agriculture sent a letter Tuesday to every member of Congress urging support of the Free Trade Agreement with Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

In the letter to Congress, the former Secretaries, Ann Veneman, Dan Glickman, Mike Espy, Clayton Yuetter, John Block and Bob Bergland, stress the importance of negotiating trade agreements that minimize the costs and maximize the benefits to U.S. farmers, ranchers, and food and agriculture organizations. The letter states that "a vote for CAFTA-DR is a vote for fairness and for reciprocal market access." Likewise, it states that "a vote against CAFTA-DR is a vote for one-way trade."

In the letter the Secretaries also point out that currently the U.S. is running a trade deficit with the six nations. Under CAFTA U.S. food and farm products will receive duty free treatment, of which virtually all of what the six CAFTA countries already enjoy through the Generalized System of Preferences and the Caribbean Basin Initiative.

"In addition, a formal trade agreement with the United States will help ensure the economic stability and growth that the region needs to avoid a return to the civil wars, insurgencies, and dictatorships of the recent past," the letter says. "As economic freedom and democracy take deeper root, incomes will increase and demand for our food and agriculture products will expand."

The Secretaries also point out that the failure to approve CAFTA-DR will have a devastating impact on U.S. efforts to negotiate trade agreements on behalf of U.S. agriculture. "The World Trade Organization Doha Development Round likely will come to a standstill," they warn. "Other countries will not be willing to negotiate with the United States knowing that CAFTA-DR, a trade agreement so clearly beneficial to U.S. interests, could be rejected by the U.S. Congress."