Dominican Republic – Central America
Free Trade Agreement
Presidents Francisco Flores Pérez, Ricardo
Maduro, George W. Bush, Abel Pacheco, En-
rique Bolaños and Alfonso Portillo
Note: Within this article, "CAFTA" refers
to the agreement as it stood before
January 2004, and "DR-CAFTA" is used
after that.
The Dominican Republic – Central Amer-
ica Free Trade Agreement,
commonly
called DR-CAFTA, is a free trade agreement
(legally a treaty under international law, but
not under US law). Originally, the agreement
encompassed the United States and the Cent-
ral American countries of Costa Rica, El Sal-
vador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua,
and was called CAFTA. In 2004, the Dominic-
an Republic joined the negotiations, and the
agreement was renamed DR-CAFTA.
DR-CAFTA together with the North Amer-
ican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and act-
ive bilateral free trade agreements, including
the Canada-Costa Rica Free Trade Agree-
ment, are seen as bloc agreements instead of
a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
agreement. Panama has completed negoti-
ations with the US for a bilateral free trade
agreement (ratification of which is pending),
and Belize is a member of the Caribbean
Community
(CARICOM). Haiti,
also
a
CARICOM member, was expected to be given
certain additional trade preferences with the
US under the Haitian Hemispheric Opportun-
ity through Partnership Encouragement Act
before Congress adjourned during 2006.
Ratification
DR-CAFTA has been approved the Dominican
Republic, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatem-
ala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the United
States.
The agreement is a treaty under international
law, but not under the United States Consti-
tution. In the US, laws require majority ap-
proval in both houses, while treaties require
two-thirds approval in the Senate only. Under
U.S. law, DR-CAFTA is a congressional-exec-
utive agreement.
The United States Senate approved the
DR-CAFTA on June 30, 2005 by a vote of
54–45,[1] and the United States House of Re-
presentatives approved the pact on July 27,
2005 b