23695: (pub and discuss) Durban: HERO Act/ NYT Editorial (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Lance Durban <lpdurban@yahoo.com>

There have been a couple of posts on Corbett about the so-called
HERO act for Haiti, that bill which would give Haitian
manufacturers duty-free access to the U.S. market for garments
made of third-country fabric.

Biggest domestic opposition in the States comes from the textile
industry, which is quite comfortable with the idea using Haitian
labor to stitch its (and only its) fabric for duty-free return
to the States.  The very idea that Haitian labor might import
competitively-priced fabric from mills in the Orient, stitch it
in Haiti and ship the garments to the USA duty-free is anathema
to these big, capital-intensive, U.S. manufacturers.

Interestingly, the U.S. textile industry is supported by left
wing contributors to this list (Erzilidanto et al)... who focus
on that pathetically small collection Haitian sewing
sub-contractors still in existance, while totally missing the
bigger picture.  Well-intentioned surely, but quite misguided
and certainly no help to Haiti, IMO.

Anyway, the New York Times weighs in with an editorial on the
subject this morning, which I reprint below:

Lance Durban

---------------------------------------------------------

         NY Times Editorial: Letting Haiti Down
                                    November 2, 2004


The 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 Senate bill, which would give Haiti preferential
access to the United States clothing and textile market,
passed unanimously this summer. Clothing manufacturers,
including J.C. Penney, then told members of the House Ways
and Means Committee 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 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 some 60,000 people in the 1980's, has shrunk to
20,000 jobs.

A few lawmakers, including Representative Charles Rangel,
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.