Negligible effect of CBERA on US imports, producers, consumers: USITC

In its publication titled ‘Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act: Impact on US Industries and Consumers and on Beneficiary Countries, Twenty-fifth Report, 2019-20’, USITC said that for US industries in particular, the overall effect of the programme on domestic production, employment and operating profits was also negligible.

USITC identified two US industries—methanol and T-shirts—that most likely have faced small negative effects due to competition from CBERA imports.

The CBERA programme, operational since January 1, 1984, affords preferential tariff treatment to most products of the 17 designated Caribbean countries that received CBERA benefits during the period covered in the report.

US imports receiving preferential treatment under CBERA totaled $1.7 billion in 2020, a decline of 4.8 per cent from $1.8 billion in 2019. The value of US imports under CBERA increased between 2016 and 2018 but decreased in both 2019 and 2020.

The change in 2020 was driven primarily by decreasing imports of apparel, which accounted for 43.1 per cent of total US imports under CBERA. Apparel, supplied mainly by Haiti, decreased by 25.6 per cent from $978 million in 2019 to $728 million in 2020, with cotton T-shirts comprising 41.7 per cent of those imports.

Petroleum-related products, accounting for 40.8 per cent of imports under CBERA, increased by 25.2 per cent in 2020. Petroleum products were supplied by both Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana.

Special CBERA provisions for Haiti have had a strong, positive effect on export earnings and job creation in Haiti's apparel sector. Apparel assembly is Haiti's largest manufacturing activity and the country's largest source of manufacturing jobs with a labour force composed mostly of women.

The future effect of CBERA on the US economy and domestic industries will likely remain small. CBERA countries generally are, and are likely to remain in the near term, small suppliers to the US market, the report added.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)