In an effort to gain leverage over the Ecuadorean government, the Obama administration has indefinitely delayed the planned elimination of tariffs on the import of roses from Ecuador. Without the rose benefit, Ecuadorean flower growers worry their trade relationship with the US may be damaged.
Flowers grow on the Valleflor flower farm in Pifo, Ecuador, Saturday. The men who grow flowers in Ecuador are deeply concerned that whatever happens to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, they may turn out to be the most unlikely collateral damage from the geopolitical wrangle over his fate.
Dolores Ochoa/AP
EnlargeGino Descalzi used to fret about things like aphids, mildew and the high cost of shipping millions of roses a year from?Ecuador?to florists in the United States. These days he's worried about a 30-year-old former spy thought to be in the transit area of the Moscow airport, and he can't believe it.
Skip to next paragraph' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
The Obama administration sent a thinly veiled economic threat to this South American country on Thursday when it indefinitely delayed a decision to eliminate tariffs on imports of roses worth about $250 million a year. The move created leverage over the leftist government seen as likeliest to grant National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden political asylum that would protect him from US criminal charges.
A week after Snowden began his stuttering, surreal flight across the globe, every passing day without him making progress toward Ecuadorean asylum makes the prospect look less likely. But the men who grow roses, asters and delphinia in the thin air of?Ecuador's?sun-soaked highlands are deeply concerned that, whatever happens to Snowden, they may turn out to be the most unlikely collateral damage from the geopolitical wrangle over his fate.
"This totally changes the financial panorama for our businesses and seriously affects the structure of our markets," said Descalzi, whose 280 employees produce some 22 million roses a year. "We're just shocked that an event so far from the political and economic life of?Ecuador?has caused so much commotion and worry."
The rose benefit for?Ecuador?had been widely expected to be approved. Any delay, they say, puts it into uncomfortably uncertain territory.
Even if Snowden never touches Ecuadorean soil and the US cuts the 6.8 percent tariff on Ecuadorean roses, along with tariffs on frozen broccoli and canned artichokes, Ecuadorean flower growers are worried that the brouhaha has damaged?Ecuador?in the eyes of the United States, hurting its reputation for stability and reliability among the buyers who must decide between flowers from?Ecuador?and the already tariff-free blooms from its nearby market-dominant competitor, Colombia.
"This is not a mathematical equation," said Benito Jaramillo, the head of the Ecuadorean flower-growers' association. The graduate of Texas A&M and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign employs hundreds of people growing "summer flowers" ? a category of less-flashy blooms like hydrangeas and asters ? on his farm about a half-hour from the capital, Quito.
"The point is that there are a lot of other factors that damage our industry's image and competitiveness in the mid-term," Jaramillo said.
Flowers are serious business in?Ecuador.
The industry says it employs about 50,000 people on about 550 farms across the country and is indirectly responsible for 110,000 jobs, putting it after only oil, seafood and bananas in the ranks of the country's biggest exporters. It boasts that the long days, rich sunlight and cool nights of the Andean highlands mean the heads of flowers, particularly roses, grow fuller and richer than those from Colombia, which they scoff at as more suitable for grocery stores than florists.
Industry representatives spent around a year campaigning hard in Washington for the inclusion of cut roses under the Generalized System of Preferences, or GSP, a mechanism meant to encourage development in lower-income countries. A broader trade pact that covers a wide range of Ecuadorean products, the Andean Trade Preference Act, had been widely expected to expire next month. That now seems certain, not least because?Ecuador?declared Thursday that it was preemptively rejecting it.
Now, the flower industry has turned its focus to its own government, which it desperately hopes won't offer asylum to Snowden.
A small group of US senators explicitly threatened trade retaliation if?Ecuador?harbors Snowden. And on Saturday, Vice President Joe Biden asked Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa to turn down any asylum request.
"We can't put the interests of 14 million Ecuadoreans at risk because of a 29-year-old hacker whom we don't even know," Descalzi said. "This gentleman doesn't mean anything to us."
The business impacts of the Snowden affair have infuriated?Ecuador's?main business groups, who accuse the government of putting ideology before commerce.
The decision to renounce the Andean Trade deal was "permeated by political and ideological motives," said Roberto Aspiazu, chairman of a coalition of?Ecuador's?largest industries. The country's business sector is calling on the government to manage the relationship with the United States "with the utmost care," he said.
The government said it planned to compensate business damaged by the loss of US tariff benefits and has painted its decision in terms of the nation's sovereignty versus US threats.
"But in any case, now they're wanting to destroy?Ecuador?for receiving an asylum application from Mr. Snowden and they are pulling out the rubbish that we spy as well," President Correa said. "If you behave badly we will take (the trade deal) away from you. Well, here you have the sovereign response from?Ecuador, my comrades."
But business groups warned that any government compensation could be interpreted as a subsidy subject to international litigation.
When asked how he feels about the whole situation, Jaramillo, the head of the flower association, thought before responding with a single word: "frustrated."
"One isolated issue shouldn't create so much damage," he said.
Gonzalo Solano contributed to this report.
encyclopedia brittanica nfl free agency jonbenet ramsey jason campbell doobie brothers jennie garth peter facinelli marques colston
No comments:
Post a Comment