Yearwood. Thank you, Mr. Meeks. Thank you for your management on Caribbean concerns. I am going to take on two issues here mostly, and I will leave my coworkers to resolve some of the others. I think among the key issues that the Caribbean has is competitiveness. And I believe to make better use of U.S.- Caribbean trade agreements a lot of the competitive concerns need to be attended to - How to finance a car from a private seller. I pointed out in my statement that the IDP they are doing a great deal of work on trade assistance. That is going to be essential to getting the Caribbean more able to type of have single windows, decrease the costs of transportation, and decrease the expense of clearance in moving items.
Concerns such as taking a trip from one Caribbean island to the other can be more costly than going to Miami and then going back down. So there are a lot of problems that the Caribbean requires to deal with in order to end up being a more competitive place to do business and to trade better. I didn't wish to, however, not seize the day to state something about Haiti. I did live there for 13 years and I do follow what is going on there very carefully. And I think it is incredibly important that the HOPE expense not simply go to 2020, but go-- there needs to be some sustainability to what is going to be successful the HOPE costs following Click here 2020.
Parliament is unstable to state the least, type of an interim President that might or might not constitutional. I am not a Haitian constitutional expert, but I have concerns. However at this moment in time, what Haiti needs more than anything else as soon as this specific point of political trouble is overcome, Haiti is going to need sustainability and stability to its relationship for trade and investment with the United States. So I believe that is a crucial problem that the Congress requires to keep its eye on. Thank you. Mr. Meeks. Yes, sir. Mr. Farnsworth. If I might just enhance what Sally just stated, the issue of competitiveness is real and we deal with business community all the time.
Therefore there needs to remain in my view a particular attention to investment environment issues. Energy becomes part of that. It is certainly not the only aspect. I think we also have to know unintended repercussions. And you have actually done some actually good work undoubtedly on the trade program, Mr. Meeks. Plainly the TPP is something that Council of the Americas supports. We appreciate your management and others of the subcommittee on that. But there are possibly some unintended consequences. And for instance, when the North American Free Trade Agreement was very first passed one of the strongest advocates for something that became called NAFTA Parity was Ambassador Richard Bernal of Jamaica who entered the U.S.
It is an excellent thing, but we desire to make certain that Jamaica and the other Caribbean countries are not negatively affected by the trade and financial investment diversion that might go to Mexico as a result of NAFTA. I believe that was a really important point then and it is a very crucial point now. And to the level that TPP moves forward, and again I hope that it does. I highly support it and we hope that it is a near term problem. Nonetheless, with some new entrants into fabrics, for example, and agriculture that are extremely competitive in the worldwide environment that will affect countries in the Caribbean Basin.
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taxpayer help to which we support, but once again the issue is one of trade and financial investment diversion. We need to beware that doing the "ideal thing" with other economies we are not adversely affecting some economies which are already stressed. Therefore what is the response here? I think the answer is to go back to the original concept in some way of NAFTA Parity only this is TPP parity, right? If Haiti, for instance, is dependent on the textiles trade with the United States, we I think need to make sure that whatever we carry out in TPP does not needlessly undermine that or doesn't produce difficulties in a manner that would eliminate a few of those advantages that Congress has actually worked so hard throughout the years to develop.
So my point is that if we take a look at these in a more detailed method, in such a way that where you have a lot of different, integration of different hairs, then I think we will come to a much better place. And so as we are looking at these problems strategically, I just really much support the manner in which you are putting this in the context of it is not just this problem or that issue or another concern, it is all of these together and wesley financial group bbb rating how can we move forward in a detailed integrated manner in assistance of the Caribbean, and I think that is what we need to keep foremost in mind.
Bernal. Let me start by thanking you, Congressman Meeks, for your constant leadership on Caribbean problems. In action to the concern that you raise, I believe that the onus is not just on the U.S (What does nav stand for in finance). however is on the Caribbean. We in the Caribbean have to do some things to make it simpler for business to operate and to end up being globally competitive. I stay convinced that if we develop the ideal sort of environment in between the U.S. and the Caribbean that there is economic sector initiative on investment and there are opportunities, extremely genuine opportunities website which can happen by integrating Caribbean and U.S.