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The US Senate has passed a bill that would extend normal trade relations (NTR) to Laos. In the key November 19 vote, senators voted 88-5 to limit debate on the bill, which is opposed by some senators who allege Laotian human rights abuses. The Senate passed the bill itself later the same day by voice vote. Extending NTR to Laos would bring into force a 1997 US-Laos trade agreement. The country was one of only four countries worldwide and the only least-developed country to which the US had not granted NTR. NTR prohibits discrimination among a country's trading partners. President Bush is expected to sign the legislation into law within the next two weeks;

Washington is reportedly preparing to drop, "if necessary," the Dominican Republic from a US free trade agreement with Central America (CAFTA). In a November 16 letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley, USTR Robert Zoellick explained that Dominican Republic's recent imposition of a 25% tax on beverages containing high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) "is incompatible with its commitments under the trade agreement it concluded with the United States and five Central American countries (DR-CAFTA) in August." Zoellick, the letter notes, has asked his staff members to forward to Central American governments a text of the trade agreement that excludes the Dominican Republic. The USTR has also asked the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to assess the likely impact of a US free trade agreement with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua on the US economy. A previous ITC study included the five Central American nations and the Dominican Republic in its assessment. The USTR indicated that the US "continues to work with the Dominican Republic on the HFCS matter and prefers to include that nation in its agreement with Central America;"

The European Union's new trade chief has said that developing countries must "open up their markets to financial firms and other service providers in exchange for concessions on agriculture by rich nations." During a visit to the World Trade Organization headquarters in Geneva, Peter Mandelson said fellow WTO members must step up efforts to reach a binding accord on liberalizing global commerce. "Negotiation has to be a two-way street," he told reporters. The WTO's 148 member governments are trying to energize the round of trade talks they started in Doha, Qatar, in 2001, aimed at slashing subsidies, tariffs and other barriers to global commerce. A WTO conference in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003 was meant to spur efforts, but collapsed amid bickering over agriculture. High-level meetings in Geneva last summer finally led to the August 1 "framework" agreement, which laid some groundwork on cutting tariffs and subsidies in agricultural trade even though it left the technical fine-tuning to meetings stretching into next year. Mandelson said he is concerned that talks on nonagricultural issues have failed to keep pace with farm trade discussions, but brushed aside criticism from smaller WTO member countries that the world's leading economies - notably the 25-nation EU, the US, Brazil, Australia, and India - use "closed-door meetings" to make deals. "It's not as if some inner circle of countries is trying to agree among themselves and simply pass down the outcome of their agreement like a fait accompli to the rest of the world," he said; and…

Economic "stagnation" has ended in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the World Bank, projecting that the region will grow by at least 4.7% in 2004 and 3.7% next year. After three sluggish years - including a modest 1.6% growth increase for the region in 2003 - most countries in the Americas have had a solid 2004, and growth has accelerated sharply in several of the larger economies. The Bank expected the region's gross domestic product (GDP) to increase to its fastest pace since 1997, due to higher commodity prices, and to increased capital flows and stronger growth in the US, Europe and Japan. According to the Bank's "Global Economic Prospects 2005" report, Brazil is estimated to have grown at least 3.9% for 2004, while Mexico expanded its economy by about 4%. The report said new investments from large US and European firms, plus strong exports growth among the maquiladora sector, helped allay fears that Mexico was losing market share to Chinese competition. Other countries in the region are also experiencing strong growth, the report said, with the GDP increasing in the second quarter of 2004 (April-June) to 13.6% in Venezuela, 11.5% in Uruguay, 6.7% in Argentina, 3.6% in Peru, and 3.55 in Colombia.

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