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Bolivia says Obama lied about cooperation
President Evo Morales on Wednesday accused Barack Obama of lying by pledging to change America's historically heavy-handed relationship with Latin America and then halting $25 million in annual trade benefits for Bolivia.
- AP
- Published: 22:48 July 2, 2009
La Paz: President Evo Morales on Wednesday accused Barack Obama of lying by pledging to change America's historically heavy-handed relationship with Latin America and then halting $25 million in annual trade benefits for Bolivia.
The US on Tuesday said it is ending the import duty waivers because world's No 3 cocaine-producing country is not doing enough to reduce "unconstrained" cultivation of coca.
Morales said the move contradicts Obama's promise at the Summit of the Americas in April to be a peer rather than an overseer of countries in the region.
"President Obama lied to Latin America when he told us in Trinidad and Tobago that there are not senior and junior partners," he told reporters.
The former coca-growers' union leader, who expelled US drug agents from his country last year, said the US trade representative used "pure lies and insults" to justify its decision.
The trade office said there has been "explicit acceptance and encouragement of coca production at the highest levels of the Bolivian government".
Bolivia, which considers coca a sacred crop that has many traditional uses other than cocaine, says the US move will cost the impoverished country about 20,000 jobs, particularly in textiles and leather. The country has had only limited success in developing alternatives to US markets.
Gary Rodriguez of the Bolivian Foreign Trade Institute said that Bolivia has had limited success in trying to compensate for the anticipated loss of US markets and that he expected Tuesday's announcement to lead to layoffs.
"Neither Venezuela, Iran, Argentina or even Brazil have so far worked as alternative markets," he said.
Venezuela had promised to buy $13 million in goods over the past year but the La Paz exporter's association, CAME, said Venezuela lacks the US dollars to pay for them.
The US is extending tariff exemptions for Ecuador for another six months as part of the Andean Trade Preference Act, but Ecuador, Peru and Colombia will see those duty-free privileges expire at year's end.
The region's cocaine-producing and transit countries have been allowed to export thousands of products to the United States duty-free since 1991 in hopes that income from legal exports will help wean peasants off selling coca, but that hasn't happened.
The US government estimates Bolivia's potential cocaine yield at 195 metric tonnes, and Morales himself said on Wednesday that coca cultivation is up in Bolivia - by six per cent last year by UN survey. But he said his government is making a good-faith control effort.
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