{ "id": "R42468", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "number": "R42468", "active": true, "source": "EveryCRSReport.com, University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department", "versions": [ { "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "id": 430126, "date": "2012-04-23", "retrieved": "2016-04-06T21:47:26.930382", "title": "The Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA DR): Developments in Trade and Investment", "summary": "On August 5, 2004, the United States entered into the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). Congress passed the implementing bill on July 28, 2005 (P.L. 109-53) and CAFTA-DR entered into force with El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala by July 1, 2006, the Dominican Republic on March 1, 2007, and Costa Rica on January 1, 2009. This permanent, comprehensive, and reciprocal trade agreement eliminates tariff and non-tariff barriers to two-way trade, building on unilateral trade preferences begun under the 1983 Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). It enhances rules and other standards for services, intellectual property rights, government procurement, and investment, and other disciplines. It also reinforces Congress\u2019s historical support for trade as a foundation of broader foreign economic, political, and security policies in the region. This report supports congressional interest with an analysis of the trade and investment trends since CAFTA-DR entered into force.\nCAFTA-DR reinforces trade and investment trends that have been emerging at least over the past decade. The United States remains the region\u2019s dominant trade partner, but its share of total trade has begun to decline. Intra-Central America trade and trade with China have seen the largest growth. Still, the United States (1) has vibrant trade in intermediate goods reflecting increasingly integrated production with the region; (2) provides the largest portion of foreign direct investment to the region; and, (3) remains the largest market for high-technology content exports. Because U.S. tariffs were already relatively low, the United States International Trade Commission model predicted that U.S. exports would rise slightly faster than imports, which so far has been the case.\nOne important indicator is the change in composition of trade. The United States has seen strong growth in exports of mineral fuels, machinery, cereals, yarns, and fabrics. Historically, the CAFTA-DR region has exported agricultural products and later apparel and other assembled goods to the United States. For over the past decade, more sophisticated and higher-value exports have grown, including specialized machinery goods (e.g., small aviation motors), electrical goods (e.g., integrated circuits), and medical equipment, while exports of light manufactures such as apparel have stagnated, or in some cases, declined. Agricultural trade has increased moderately and remains a combination of traditional exports (e.g., coffee and bananas) with little growth in higher value nontraditional goods (e.g., pineapple and sweet peppers).\nThese aggregate trends, however, mask important country differences. As examples of moving up the value chain, Costa Rica has increased nontraditional production in both its manufacturing and agricultural sectors, and so has experienced the largest growth in exports. Similarly, Nicaragua has begun to enter the assembly manufacturing sector and so experienced the second highest rate of trade growth. The other four countries have seen their exports stagnate or decline for multiple reasons, including dependence on the highly competitive apparel trade, lower levels of investment, public security problems, and broader governance and policy concerns.\nCAFTA-DR reinforces the idea that growth in trade correlates closely with policies that promote economic stability, private investment in production, public investment in education, infrastructure, logistics, and good governance in general. Countries with worsening security and governance problems face additional problems in benefitting from CAFTA-DR. It is also important to promote productivity in part by avoiding delays in making necessary adjustments to trade liberalization, focusing public and private resources on trade facilitation, developing strategies for trade diversification, and examining CAFTA-DR trade rules (especially for textiles and apparel) that have perhaps inadvertently hindered trade growth expected from the accord.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "active": true, "formats": [ { "format": "HTML", "encoding": "utf-8", "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/R42468", "sha1": "265d69ee0725a4799eaf2e4da5a7f034b223120f", "filename": "files/20120423_R42468_265d69ee0725a4799eaf2e4da5a7f034b223120f.html", "images": null }, { "format": "PDF", "encoding": null, "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R42468", "sha1": "f18f10951c5211a0b678301a7b6a6aaa40331683", "filename": "files/20120423_R42468_f18f10951c5211a0b678301a7b6a6aaa40331683.pdf", "images": null } ], "topics": [] }, { "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department", "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc84026/", "id": "R42468_2012Apr09", "date": "2012-04-09", "retrieved": "2012-04-27T15:49:45", "title": "The Dominican Republic-Central America- United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTADR): Developments in Trade and Investment", "summary": "On August 5, 2004, the United States entered into the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). This permanent, comprehensive, and reciprocal trade agreement eliminates tariff and non-tariff barriers to two-way trade, building on unilateral trade preferences begun under the 1983 Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). CAFTA-DR reinforces the idea that growth in trade correlates closely with policies that promote economic stability, private investment in production, public investment in education, infrastructure, logistics, and good governance in general.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORT", "active": false, "formats": [ { "format": "PDF", "filename": "files/20120409_R42468_4e4e9940ea9a1744ecacfd670128a80e57fbc74b.pdf" }, { "format": "HTML", "filename": "files/20120409_R42468_4e4e9940ea9a1744ecacfd670128a80e57fbc74b.html" } ], "topics": [ { "source": "LIV", "id": "Agriculture", "name": "Agriculture" }, { "source": "LIV", "id": "Trade agreements - Central American countries - U.S.", "name": "Trade agreements - Central American countries - U.S." }, { "source": "LIV", "id": "Trade agreements - U.S. - Central American countries", "name": "Trade agreements - U.S. - Central American countries" }, { "source": "LIV", "id": "Agriculture in foreign trade", "name": "Agriculture in foreign trade" }, { "source": "LIV", "id": "Trade", "name": "Trade" } ] } ], "topics": [ "Economic Policy", "Foreign Affairs" ] }