What is the trade agreement of the Caribbean?

The trade agreement between the countries of the Caribbean Basin, which have established a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), is not only an important vehicle for the establishment of trade preferences and reciprocal benefits in products and services. Its significance lies also in its impact on political relations among the countries that make up the region.

Although the FTA was initially developed to promote economic development, social equality and sustainable development, it has also served as a tool of political and cultural influence on the nations that operate within it. In the past and up until now, regional integration processes are characterized by the strong participation of the states and the people of the Latin American and Caribbean area. Since the Treaty of Panama in 1928, no other agreement has ever been signed with so many parties and involved countries, including an autonomous territory that in fact did not apply in full the provisions of the pact.

The FTAs between the countries of the Caribbean Basin, which currently include 11 Caribbean States, a few provinces and territories in North America (Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, Bahamas, Grenada, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico), are still in force. The negotiations for their expansion began in 1999, when the negotiations for a FTA between Mexico and the United States were completed.

These free trade pacts were approved in 2023, and came into force on October 1st, 2023. Since then, negotiations on the expansion of these free trade agreements have intensified. In April of this year, negotiators from twelve countries decided to continue with the process of expansion and expansion.

How the region is organized. The Caribbean is geographically grouped around the island of Hispaniola. The six states that share the island and have a greater economic interest in it are grouped around an entity called the Caribbean Community (CRC) and enjoy common and collective policies to promote common objectives. The members of this organization are the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.

Within the Caribbean Community, the countries of the Eastern Caribbean are formed by the English-speaking group and those of the Western Caribbean by the French-speaking group. This division in the language of instruction is justified because of the linguistic similarity that exists between these two groups.

What is CBI countries?

How should we do it?

The first step to developing a CBI is to think about its purpose, the ultimate goals we want it to achieve. CBI countries are countries in which a significant reduction of poverty has been achieved and the social exclusion and discrimination against women has ended. The goal of CBI is to reach zero poverty and zero social exclusion. All the countries of the World were asked to have Zero Poverty and Zero Social Exclusion (ZPZE) on the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. This is the definition that the World Bank and the UN agreed on in 1998. The World Bank developed its own definition: reducing poverty and inequality by at least 60%. The difference between the two is due to the fact that the WB includes also the countries that have just reduced inequality instead of poverty. However, the countries with less than 60% of reduction must take actions to catch up to the target level of ZPZE.

The second step is to work out what would constitute an objective measure for the progress made towards achieving ZPZE. The World Bank's measure of poverty is called poverty line. The poverty line is calculated on the basis of income and consumption expenditure that the households need to survive. Poverty in these terms means not having enough to live on. The most important difference between these two poverty lines is that they are calculated on the basis of a per capita measure, and therefore they change over time. Later poverty lines have been calculated for various countries.

The World Bank defines the concept of social exclusion as the situation in which people are deprived of basic access to education, health, housing, social services, and job opportunities. The bank's measure of this category includes only the children who receive only partial nutrition, and who therefore cannot go to school or go to health centers. It does not include the children who get one full meal, but who still suffer from stunted growth. We would define social exclusion as the condition of being excluded from the society's activities, institutions, and resources. The inclusion or exclusion of women, ethnic groups, and other marginalized groups is a crucial issue here.

What countries are part of the CBTPA?

The Council of Europe and the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory on Migration (EMO) published in November 2023, "The situation of migration in Europe in 2017", where they highlighted that the European Union (EU) is "the continent of origin for more than half of the estimated 65 million international migrants". The report states that the EU is home to 7,700 migrants "for every one million citizens".

Crisis and Migration in Europe: The Situation of Migration in the European Union, Council of Europe (2018), P. 8.

The European Union comprises 27 countries from the European Economic Area (EEA), plus 12 additional countries that joined the EU in May 2004: Cyprus, Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Estonia. The Treaty of Lisbon (entered into force on 1 December 2009) has established the European Parliament and given it legislative powers. The Constitution of the European Union, adopted in December 2023, confirmed these new rights in Article 8 of the Treaty on European Union (2000) and the Treaty of Lisbon (2007).

In the context of asylum, the Treaty of Dublin makes Germany responsible for processing the first application for international protection. However, only 20% of asylum applications are granted the status of being processed. To deal with the problem of asylum seekers in the interior of the EU, the Schengen Agreement (1990) was developed. The Schengen Agreement entered into force on January 1, 1995. It enables freedom of movement for all persons travelling from one member state to another in the EU without border controls, with a few exceptions. The Schengen Agreement has thus made it possible to deal with the influx of migrants more effectively, but also to facilitate, the spread of terrorism and smuggling. Under the Schengen Agreement, persons travelling from one country to another are required to comply with the rules of conduct between members.

Migration in the European Union includes both irregular immigration and legal migration. In 2023, over 90 percent of the 4.5 million migrants in the EU were irregularly in the EU, most of them being Syrian refugees, and the others coming mainly from countries in Eastern and Central Europe. The number of irregular immigrants increased, whereas the proportion of the EU's population of non-EU nationals decreased.

What is a CBI country for customs?

I am not saying this out of the blue, I have read the article on the CBI and it makes sense to me.

In the article the author states that if the CBI is country of origin-based then this would apply to many countries. But most countries have customs control not CBI. Therefore the author should have pointed this out earlier instead of the last sentence that says:

What is important is that you look at which countries a product comes from. If a product originates from the European Union, you want to pay attention to the European Union. If it is manufactured in China, you want to know about China. You also want to know about products imported from other countries that will enter the United States. If it comes from a NAFTA country, you need to know about Canada and Mexico, for example.

In the USA we do have something called the country of origin labeling but I do not think we have CBI and there are good reasons for this. Since its a free trade zone between Mexico and the USA one has to wonder how can a CBI work if we have no customs (CBI) system? But the author does make one very good point: If you are just looking at labels on products, however, you can be fooled into thinking you are checking the country of origin when in fact you are not. It can be misleading at best.

Exactly, so there needs to be some additional verification. When you buy a product look at the label of the product. However, do not just read the information on the product and make a conclusion. Take the time to also look at the country of origin based on the information given on the product label. Also take into account the country of origin shown on other information on the product that tells you more about the country of origin than just the label. For example you can see the label of a food product and the first line might say Product of Canada but the rest of the label may say Made in China. So based on the labels information, the product could be Canadian but is made in China. Now, if the company that owns the product is from Canada and if they are an exporter they need to know about how their products are being shipped to a specific country.