Africa and The Middle East

An informal group of non-governmental organizations and business associations has begun an internal debate on a set of principles for the reform of U.S. trade preference programs that the group hopes to send to members of Congress and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk after the congressional recess, which ends on April 20. The principles drafted for the group's consideration this week propose a replacement of various preference programs with one unified preference program offering two tiers of benefits. The first...

President Barack Obama late last week offered his personal endorsement of a congressional proposal to eliminate tariffs on certain textiles made in border regions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but U.S. importers are already pushing for broader product coverage than what is contained in legislation that has been introduced in the House and Senate, sources said this week. Obama in a March 27 speech outlining his Afghanistan strategy called on Congress to pass a bill authorizing him to create Reconstruction Opportunity...