The American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), an alliance of ten business groups representing firms from across the Canadian, Mexican and US textile and apparel supply chain, is concerned that the expiration of the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBPTA) in 2020 will adversely affect the Haiti trade preference programmes, which ends in 2025.

It is ‘vitally important’ that the CBTPA is maintained as it strongly supports jobs and exports in the US textiles sector, AAFA said in a letter to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR). Currently more than 99 per cent of the apparel that is imported under the CBTPA is imported from Haiti.

The CBTPA of 2000 extended preferential tariff treatment to textile and apparel products assembled from US fabric.

As the Dominican Republic-Central America FTA (CAFTA-DR) between the United States and a group comprising Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic snatches away apparel business out of other Caribbean Basin countries, the future of CBTPA is intrinsically linked to the future of Haiti’s apparel programme.

Although a significant amount of trade is now entered under the Haiti HOPE and HELP trade partnership programmes, that alone is not enough to maintain the mutually beneficial US-Haiti trade ties, feels AAFA. Though these programmes are designed to work in concert with CBTPA and vice versa, multiple expiration dates induce confusion.

As the CBTPA programmes require the use of US or regional yarns and fabrics, their termination could result in a loss of US fabric and yarn exports to Haiti. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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