Reuters/Washington
Ecuador, which renounced longtime US trade benefits last month, is on the verge of getting its wish when the programme expires next week, congressional aides said. Key committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have no plans to move legislation to renew the 22-year-old Andean Trade Preference Act, the aides said.
Ecuador, which angered US lawmakers by flirting with offering asylum to former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, has received duty-free treatment for many of its goods since 1991 under the Andean programme.
After a senior US lawmaker threatened Congress would revoke the trade benefits if Ecuador took in Snowden, who is wanted by the US for revealing details of its intelligence programmes, Ecuador responded by renouncing the benefits.
An Opec nation of 15mn people, Ecuador exported $5.4bn worth of oil, $166mn of cut flowers, $122mn of fruits and vegetables and $80mn of tuna to the US under the Andean trade programme in 2012.
Termination of the benefits could hurt Ecuador’s cut flower industry, which has blossomed under the programme and employs more than 100,000 workers, many of them women.
The Andean programme originally also included Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. But Bolivia was kicked out a few years ago when Washington determined it was no longer co-operating in its war on drugs.
Colombia and Peru now have free-trade agreements with the US and no longer need the programme. That makes Ecuador the only remaining beneficiary under the programme, which expires on July 31.
Ed Gresser, a trade policy specialist at the GlobalWorks Foundation, said it would be unusual for the US to run a trade benefit programme for just one country.