[Dog Gone]

CAFTA does not provide new tariff cuts for Central American goods. Already, most textile and apparel products enter the United States duty-free under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) program.

That's correct. But the important point is that it phases out the tariffs on American exports to those countries, which means we will sell more to them.

It also opens up their government monopolies on such things as insurance and phone and internet service to American competition. The end result is that American companies can expand and the citizens of those countries will get the benefits of competition in the marketplace, better service, and lower prices.

Everyone wins.

[hedgetrimmer]

That's correct. But the important point is that it phases out the tariffs on American exports to those countries, which means we will sell more to them.

Their purchasing power is miniscule. What this agreement does is open up the Carribean as another path for China to flood the US markets with their products, especially textiles.

There is an extremely unhealthy favoritism in this administration toward China:

And the United States, China's Cold War enemy, is benignly watching the Asian economic superpower move into its backyard.

For decades China and Taiwan used dollar diplomacy to win over small Caribbean nations where small projects building roads, bridges, wells and fisheries go a long way.

But Beijing's growing economic clout is tipping the scales in the region.

Caribbean trade with China reached $2 billion last year, a 42.5 percent increase from 2003, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

The United States has applauded China's economic offensive, seeing it as a herald of political reform.

"China's intensified interest in the Western Hemisphere does not imply a lack of focus by the United States," Roger Noriega, the U.S. assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in a recent letter to the editor of New Jersey's Newark Star Ledger.

"The United States has long stood for expansion of global trade and consolidating democracy."

This year, two Caribbean countries -- Dominica and Grenada -- switched allegiance to China, abandoning Taiwan, which China calls "a renegade province."

***
China is winning the geopolitical games. The US is giving away the store.

[jpsb]

What exports? Food? Ok maybe, but other then food we to not produce anything they would want.