Letting Haiti down again: printer friendly version 

                  Letting Haiti down again
                  International Herald Tribune 
                  Thursday, November 4, 2004


            The U.S. House of Representatives is on the verge of killing a trade 
            measure that by some accounts would create at least 100,000 new jobs 
            in poverty-stricken Haiti in the next 18 months. The forces behind 
            this disgrace are, as usual, textile interests in the South, along 
            with organized labor and the lawmakers who coddle those 
            constituencies.

            A strong bill, which would give Haiti preferential access to the 
            U.S. clothing and textile market, passed unanimously in the U.S. 
            Senate this summer. Clothing manufacturers, including J.C. Penney, 
            then told members of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of 
            Representatives that the measure would allow them to build factories 
            across Haiti that would employ thousands of workers making T-shirts 
            and sweatshirts.

            But when the measure got to the House, lawmakers misnamed it HOPE 
            and promptly took out the main inducement to American importers and 
            retailers: an allowance that would permit them to take lower-priced 
            foreign fabric to be assembled into garments in Haiti. 

            Having effectively watered the bill down, Ways and Means Committee 
            members headed out of town to campaign for re-election. With much 
            left on their plate for the upcoming lame-duck session, chances are 
            dim for fixing this measure.

            Bush administration officials said back in February that this time 
            around, they would do the right thing in a country where per capita 
            income barely hits $300, the unemployment rate is 80 percent and 
            people actually make food out of mud. 

            But the administration has remained quiet on the Haiti trade bill. 
            Meanwhile, with rampant corruption and endemic poverty crippling 
            Haiti, most of the country's few textile factories have shut down. 
            American troops are long gone, and an anemic United Nations force 
            has done little to restore hope. Haiti's apparel industry, which 
            employed 60,000 people in the 1980s, has shrunk to 20,000 jobs.

            A few lawmakers indicate that they may try to revive the bill in the 
            lame-duck session. We hope they do and that their colleagues do the 
            right thing.





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