Central America & Caribbean

CAFTA-DR has already produced groundbreaking results.

AS/COA held an April panel discussion on infrastructure and development in Central America. Discussion centered on an economic and investment outlook for the region, infrastructure development, and the importance of enhancing regional and global trade relations.

Leaders from the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas met October 16 and 17 in Cochabamba, where they charted a course for implementing a virtual currency that could replace the dollar in commercial transactions. ALBA also imposed a blockade on Honduras.

AS/COA Honorary Chairman David Rockefeller urges the White house to resist protectionist demands that could further weaken the U.S. economy. "President Obama should recognize the critical need for a free flow of trade and finance across the world’s borders," he writes in The New York Times.

The State Department took new measures, including a cut of over $30 million in aid, to pressure the de facto government in Honduras toward resolving the political impasse stemming from the coup. The Central American country faces increasing economic isolation since the June overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya.

"Now is the time to have an open and honest dialogue about the role of trade in the economy and the ways it influences economic growth, job creation, and wealth generation," writes AS/COA President and CEO Susan Segal in an op-ed for Poder on the sustainable benefits liberalized trade has for the global economy.

"If the United States is going to be a partner with Latin America—a healthy and laudable goal—the aspiring powers of the hemisphere need to shake off their timidity and worn-out rhetoric," write AS/COA's Senior Director of Policy Christopher Sabatini and Kissinger Associates' Stephanie Junger-Moat.