Clinton’s proposal on African trade

At Issue: President Clinton recently sought US Congressional approval of the Africa-Caribbean Basin trade package.

Our View: It includes apparel products, Mr. President, and the NMI must not be included, in your own words, the “race to the bottom.”

US Citizens from this American Archipelago watch policy promotions by our national leaders, policies that cater to promoting trade and the welfare of others (non-citizens) over our very own.

At a recent conference on African trade, President Clinton declared “This is a job that needs to be done” on a measure now before the US Congress on Africa-Caribbean trade package. He added that African nations “would benefit from trade liberalization…that countries that engaged in higher levels of trade grew more quickly than nations closed to the outside world.

Said he: “Trade must not be a race to the bottom, whether we’re talking about child labor, harsh working conditions or environmental degradation” but “neither can we use fear to keep the poorest part of the global community at the bottom forever”.

We couldn’t agree more with our Commander-In-Chief.

Interestingly, though, Mr. President, the very policy (federalization of immigration in this non-state American jurisdiction) won’t turn our economic fate into a “race to the bottom”, but instant economic annihilation of the very means by which our people engage in wealth and jobs creation, a policy you have trumpeted all over the country, which was and still is never inclusive of the NMI.

Perhaps President Clinton hasn’t received a realistic assessment of island realities from his men of wisdom at the US Department of Interior and thus the oversight in bringing justice and truth to this resource-poor American Archipelago in terms of our economic fate.

Furthermore, his people have done nothing but brow-beat the image of these isles in radio talk shows and television documentaries that depict such warped perception of conditions here spreading them as the gospel truth. The use of intimidation, Mr. President, by your people in the lead federal agency has done nothing but send a sense of nervousness and instability to current and future investors. No American Community deserves such treatment in ruination.

Yes, we definitely subscribe to your economic policy of wealth and jobs creation. We will attain the very essence of such policy if your administration veers from its agenda of economic annihilation. We are Americans too, Mr. President, and if you can promote a policy for non-citizens, you definitely must temper such policy to include the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. God bless our country “…from sea to shining sea!”