23719: (pub) Chamberlain: NYTimes on Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(NYTimes editorial, 2 Nov 04)

Letting Haiti Down



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.