ITC: Andean trade preferences offer negligible benefits

ITC: Andean trade preferences offer negligible benefits The U.S. International Trade Commission said in a study released Nov. 7 that Andean Trade Preference Act imports during 2007 continued to have a “negligible overall effect” on the U.S. economy and consumers.
   The ATPA also continued to have little impact on reducing illicit coca cultivation and promoting crop substitution in the Andean countries during 2007.
   Congress recently extended the ATPA through Dec. 31, 2009, subject to country-specific exceptions for Bolivia and Ecuador.
   The ITC report, which is the 13th in an ATPA monitoring series released to Congress, specifically noted that the Andean countries collectively accounted for 1.1 percent of total U.S. imports in 2007. The value of duty-free imports that benefited exclusively from ATPA last year accounted for about 0.6 percent of total U.S. imports.
   U.S. imports under ATPA of knitted cotton tops and fresh or chilled asparagus showed the most significant impact on U.S. consumers through lower prices.
   “Since ATPA was enacted in 1991, its economic impact on the U.S. economy as a whole and on all but a limited number of U.S. industries and consumer goods has been minimal,” the ITC said. “The probable future effects of ATPA are likely to continue to be minimal.”
   The ITC added that U.S. and Andean government and private sector individuals reported that the uncertainties related to the scheduled December 2008 expiration of ATPA preferential tariff treatment and recently negotiated U.S. bilateral free trade agreements with Peru and Colombia were “dampening regional interest in investment to produce ATPA-eligible exports, particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador.”
   The report, Andean Trade Preference Act: Impact on U.S. Industries and Consumers and on Drug Crop Eradication and Crop Substitution, 13th Report, 2007 (Inv. No. 332-352, USITC Publication No. 4037, September 2008), is available online at hotdocs.usitc.gov/docs/pubs/332/pub4037.pdf.