A Break for Caribbean Trade

Washington should heed the call of Caribbean island nations for help in gaining a small place in the global economy. Last week, in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright promised Caribbean foreign ministers that she will seek congressional legislation to reduce U.S. tariffs on their textiles and other goods to levels granted to Canada and Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement. All these islands have troubled economies, and the United States cannot seal itself from the problems of its poor neighbors.

What Albright recommends could cost about $332 million over three years in reduced tariffs for textiles alone, but lowering them would help fill a gap left by the Reagan administration’s Caribbean Basin Initiative, launched in 1982.

The initiative was developed to combat the spread of Soviet influence in Central America and the Caribbean. The answer, Washington figured, was to ease the poverty on which Communism feeds. (Only Cuba fully embraced Communism and dependence on Soviet trade, and it now suffers the consequences.) But poverty was not eradicated from the region because the benefits of the Caribbean Basin Initiative were never sufficient.

The initiative promoted some U.S. investment in the islands but never enough to turn the economic tide. Inadequate infrastructure and technology on most islands left regional trade stagnant. Diminished sales of sugar and other island products further squeezed their economies.

Key merchandise such as garments and leather goods still face duties when they enter the United States, and these are the products that the Caribbean is counting on to turn the corner, to boost its economies more than one-day stops by cruise ships and their often tightfisted passengers.

Congress has an opportunity to improve and complete the deal initiated in 1982 and treat the Caribbean countries as real partners in trade. Surely two-way opportunities can be found. Congress should think in terms of venturing to gain.