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DR-CAFTA
Dominican Republic and Central America Free Trade Agreement
DR-CAFTA is a trade agreement between the United States and the Central American and Caribbean countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. The aims of DR-CAFTA is to create a free trade zone between participating countries, seeking to do so by removing tariffs on approximately 80% of US exports to participating countries. The agreement does not necessitate significant reductions in US import duties for the other participants in DR-CAFTA, because the majority of goods exported by those countries already receive duty-free treatment under the Caribbean Basin Initiative.
There are several concerns with respect to how labor rights factor in to the DR-CAFTA agreement. Most generally, there is valid concern that what this trade agreement creates is yet another version of the neo-liberal trade regime, which many have argued is a failed model. DR-CAFTA, its critics argue, provides conditions ripe for corporate growth and control, leading to the destruction of locally owned businesses and farms, due to their inability to compete on economies of scale.
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