Yearwood. Thank you, Mr. Meeks. Thank you for your leadership on Caribbean issues. I am going to take on 2 concerns here primarily, and I will leave my coworkers to resolve a few of the others. I believe one of the key issues that the Caribbean has is competitiveness. And I believe to make much better usage of U.S.- Caribbean trade arrangements Additional hints a great deal of the competitive concerns require to be resolved - How do you finance a car. I pointed out in my testament that the IDP they are doing a lot of deal with trade facilitation. That is going to be necessary to getting the Caribbean more able to sort of have single windows, decrease the expenses of transport, and reduce the cost of clearance in moving goods.
Concerns such as taking a trip from one here 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 tackle in order to become a more competitive place to do business and to trade more efficiently. I didn't wish to, however, not take the opportunity to state something about Haiti. I did live there for 13 years and I do follow what is going on there very closely. And I believe it is exceptionally crucial that the HOPE bill not simply go to 2020, but go-- there needs to be some sustainability to what is going to prosper the HOPE bill following 2020.
Parliament is unsteady to say the least, sort of an interim President that might or might not constitutional. I am not a Haitian constitutional professional, however I have concerns. However at this moment in time, what Haiti requires more than anything else when this particular point of political difficulty is gotten rid of, Haiti is going to require sustainability and stability to its relationship for trade and financial investment with the United States. So I think that is a crucial issue that the Congress needs to keep its eye on. Thank you. Mr. Meeks. Yes, sir. Mr. Farnsworth. If I might simply strengthen what Sally just stated, the problem of competitiveness is genuine and we deal with the business neighborhood all the time.
And so there has to remain in my view a particular attention to investment climate problems. Energy belongs to that. It is definitely not the only aspect. I think we also need to know unintended repercussions. And you have done some truly good work clearly on the trade program, Mr. Meeks. Plainly the TPP is something that Council of the Americas supports. We value your leadership and others of the subcommittee on that. However there are maybe some unintended effects. And for example, when the North American Free Trade Arrangement was very first passed among the strongest advocates for something that ended up being called NAFTA Parity was Ambassador Richard Bernal of Jamaica who entered into the U.S.
It is a good idea, however we wish to make certain that Jamaica and the other Caribbean nations are not negatively impacted by the trade and investment diversion that might go to Mexico as an outcome of NAFTA. I believe that was a very important point then and it is an extremely crucial point now. And to the extent 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. However, with some new entrants into fabrics, for example, and farming that are extremely competitive in the international environment that will affect countries in the Caribbean Basin.
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taxpayer support to which we support, but once again the concern is one of trade and investment diversion. We have to be careful that doing the "best thing" with other economies we are not adversely impacting some economies which are currently stressed. Therefore what is the answer here? I think the answer is to go back to the initial idea in some way of NAFTA Parity only this is TPP parity, right? If Haiti, for instance, is reliant on the textiles trade with the United States, we I think need to ensure that whatever we perform in TPP doesn't unnecessarily weaken that or does not create troubles in such a way that would remove some of those advantages that Congress has actually worked so hard for many years to develop.
So my point is that if we look at these in a more extensive way, in such a way that where you have a lot of different, integration of different hairs, then I think we will pertain to a better location. Therefore as we are looking at these problems tactically, I simply very much support the method that you are putting this in the context of it is not simply this issue or that concern or another helping timeshare owners problem, it is all of these together and how can we move on in an extensive integrated manner in assistance of the Caribbean, and I think that is what we have to keep primary in mind.
Bernal. Let me begin by thanking you, Congressman Meeks, for your consistent management on Caribbean problems. In response to the problem that you raise, I believe that the onus is not just on the U.S (What happened to yahoo finance portfolios). however is on the Caribbean. We in the Caribbean have to do some things to make it much easier for company to run and to become worldwide competitive. I stay persuaded that if we develop the ideal sort of environment between the U.S. and the Caribbean that there is private sector effort on financial investment and there are chances, extremely genuine chances which can occur by integrating Caribbean and U.S.