The United States is unlikely to negotiate a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with the Bahamas because this nation’s 300,000-strong population is too small a consumer market to interest it, the minister of foreign affairs said yesterday.
Fred Mitchell, who has taken over responsibility for all international trade agreements impacting the Bahamas, told the House of Assembly that among the greatest challenges facing this nation was: “How the Bahamas will integrate itself into the world economy.”
The minister used part of his Budget Communication to directly rebut the suggestions made in The Tribune earlier this week by Brian Moree, senior partner at McKinney, Bancroft &. Hughes, who urged this nation to sign an FTA with the US and also negotiate to join the Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA) if that project was revived.
Mr Moree said the Bahamas’ economic future, “like it or not”, lay with its major trading partner, the US, rather than with the Caribbean Single Market & Economy (CSME).
But Mr Mitchell said yesterday that discussions he and other CARICOM trade ministers had held with the US Trade Representative and his counterpart from the European Union (EU) had indicated that neither would be interested in a bilateral free trade agreement with the Bahamas.
Mr Mitchell said: “lt is clear, in terms of international trade agreements, there is little likelihood of a bilateral trade agreement with a market of 300,000 people.”
He reiterated Prime Minister Perry Christie’s position that under the current administration, the Bahamas would not sign on to any of the CSME, World Trade Organisation (WTO) or FTAA without the “fullest consultation” with the Bahamian people.
Mr Mitchell also said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was moving to create a Department of International Trade within its walls.
He added: “The Chamber of Commerce has a constructive attitude to these international trade agreements, knowing the Bahamas cannot hide itself from the world.”
Yet while Mr Mitchell described the Bahamas’ approach to international trade agreements as one of its greatest challenges, many in the private sector are likely to have been left wondering just how serious the Government is about tackling the issue given its Budget spending allocations.
For fiscal 2006-2007, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been allocated just $50,000 for FTAA and WTO developments. And the Bahamas Trade Commission, which in 2003 recommended that the Bahamas “defer” a decision on the CSME, will this year receive just $40,000.
Meanwhile, Mr Mitchell used yesterday’s Budget debate to hit out at those who held different points of view to his own on the CSME and other trade matters.
He accused unnamed persons of spreading misinformation, and even being guilty of “xenophobia” and “racism”. His comments that this “pollutes the debate” and “their arguments are best ignored” will also give rise to questions about whether the Government wants a debate on trade-related matters.
In his address on the CSME to last week’s conference staged by the Nassau Institute and the Atlas Research Foundation, Mr Moree urged Bahamians not to “be lulled into a false sense of security” or be misled into thinking that the issue of whether the Bahamas should join had gone away.
In a thinly-veiled reference to Mr Mitchell and his Bahamas Uncensored website, a tool frequently used to attack and smear those who hold different views to the minister, Mr Moree hinted that the debate had beer “characterised by persona attacks”, with a number made on him. This, he said, “does not respect the intelligence of the Bahamian people”.
“From the point of view of the Bahamas, the CSME is not a dead issue and those that suggest it is are merely trying to distract attention from the issue,” Mr Moree said.
He added that the language used by Mr Mitchell last year when he said the Government would not proceed with taking the Bahamas into the CSME during the current administra tion’s term in office, potentially left the door open to return to the issue after the general election.
“If the Bahamas will join the CSME, and on what terms, is a very live issue in this country,” Mr Moree said.
“It is extremely important for all of us to require the major political parties to unequivocally tell us where they stand on this issue of the CSME.” Mr Moree said the CSME was “too big an issue, too important an issue to be lost” in the upcoming general election campaign, only for the winner to declare they had been given a mandate to decide on the issue.
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor
