WASHINGTON - The
United States announced today a bold, comprehensive offer to eliminate tariffs
and trade barriers in the negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas,
a $13 trillion market of 34 countries and nearly 800 million people. The U.S. is
offering to eliminate its import duties on the majority of industrial and
agricultural imports from the Western Hemisphere immediately upon entry into
force of the FTAA, and is offering broad access to its services, investment and
government procurement sectors. In addition, the U.S. is offering that textiles
and apparel imports from the region would be duty-free in the U.S. just five
years after the FTAA takes effect, provided other countries reciprocate.
"It is our shared
hemispheric vision that free trade and openness benefits everyone and provides
opportunity, prosperity and hope to all our peoples. President Bush has made the
FTAA a top U.S. priority, and today we deliver with bold proposals to lower
barriers throughout the region," said U.S. Trade Representative Robert B.
Zoellick. "The United States has created a detailed roadmap for free trade in
the Western Hemisphere - we've put all our tariffs on the table because free
trade benefits all and brings us closer together as neighbors."The U.S.
offer sets an important benchmark in the market access negotiations, and
demonstrates U.S. leadership as negotiations move into a critical and
substantive phase. To encourage other FTAA countries to make equally ambitious
market access proposals, today's U.S. offer only extends to those FTAA countries
that put their own offers on the table. Over the next several months, the United
States and other FTAA countries will respond to each other's initial offers and
begin negotiations in preparation for the Miami Ministerial meeting in November,
which the United States is co-chairing with Brazil. The U.S. offer covers five
key areas of the negotiations: consumer and industrial goods; agriculture;
services; investment; and government procurement.
"The U.S. is
already a very open market. The FTAA will benefit American farmers, workers,
consumers and businesses by reducing high tariffs and trade barriers throughout
the rest of the Western Hemisphere, while promoting regional economic growth and
integration. The United States shares a hemispheric responsibility with our
co-chair Brazil in helping to lead these negotiations to success, and we look
forward to building on our good work and cooperation," added Zoellick.
The U.S. offers
provide different rates of reductions in trade barriers throughout the region to
reflect the wide disparity in economic size and development among FTAA
countries. The 34 countries had earlier agreed that differences in the levels
and development and size of economies should be taken into account in the
developments of the market access offers. The United States has consulted
extensively with Congress and trade advisory groups over several months during
the drafting of these offers, summaries of which were released today.
Highlights of
the U.S. FTAA Offer:
About 65% of U.S.
imports of consumer & industrial goods from the Hemisphere (not already
covered by NAFTA) would be duty-free immediately upon effectiveness of FTAA,
with all duties on consumer & industrial products eliminated by
2015.
For U.S. imports
of textiles and apparel from FTAA countries, the offer is even bolder: we
propose to move to zero tariffs in just five years, provided other countries
reciprocate.
To jump start the
move toward open markets, immediate elimination of tariffs is offered on a
reciprocal basis in key sectors such as chemicals, construction and mining
equipment, electrical equipment, energy products, environmental products,
information technology, medical equipment, non-woven fabric, paper, steel, and
wood products.
About 56% of
agricultural imports from the Hemisphere would be duty-free immediately when
FTAA takes effect. Other agricultural tariffs fall into staging categories of 5
years, 10 years, or longer, tailored to individual countries.
Market access
opportunities would be provided broadly across the U.S. investment and services
sector, with markets open unless a specific exception is taken. This presumption
for market opening-a "negative list"-is similar to U.S. free trade agreements
(FTA) with Chile and Singapore.
Companies in FTAA
countries would be able to compete for U.S. government procurement contracts on
an equal footing with firms from current NAFTA partners. This market opportunity
covers nearly all the goods and services purchased by 51 federal government
agencies.
Today's offer to
FTAA countries is designed to mesh with broad U.S. initiatives in the World
Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. For example, the U.S. FTAA offer
envisions the elimination of consumer and industrial tariffs no later than 2015,
which is in line with the U.S. "Tariff-Free World 2015" proposal in the WTO. The
U.S. offer also is intended to spur increased cooperation in the WTO on
important global issues, such as the U.S. proposal to eliminate agricultural
export subsidies in all WTO members and to reduce substantially trade-distorting
farm supports.
In addition to
the FTAA and WTO, the United States is pursuing an aggressive strategy of global
trade liberalization through bilateral agreements. In the last month, the United
States has launched FTA negotiations with five Central American nations (Costa
Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua); with Morocco; and with
the nations of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU - Botswana, Lesotho,
Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland). The United States also recently completed
FTA negotiations with Singapore and Chile.
In order to
facilitate the FTAA negotiations, the United States is providing assistance and
coordinating trade capacity building throughout the Western Hemisphere. Last
November at the FTAA Ministerial Meeting in Quito, Ecuador, the United States
won endorsement from ministers for the Hemispheric Cooperation Program (HCP), a
comprehensive trade capacity-building program to help small and developing
countries in the region to fully benefit from the FTAA. In FY 2002, the United
States provided over $102 million in trade capacity building activities to
countries participating in the FTAA. AID represents approximately 65% of total
US government trade capacity building assistance.
