Cardin Opening Statement on Oman FTA

Cardin Opening Statement on Oman FTA

More progress needed for broad congressional support

Washington, D.C. - Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Ranking Member Benjamin L. Cardin issued the following opening statement during today's informal mark-up of the US-Oman free trade agreement:

"We have been trying to work with the Government of Oman and USTR in a manner very similar to the Bahrain agreement. The statements made today, as far as the importance of Oman and moving forward in the Middle East with trade and removing not only the secondary, but primary boycotts against Israel are all very important objectives that are furthered by an FTA with Oman.

"Democrats have made it clear, however, that there are certain minimum standards that must be met with regards to complying with workers' rights and recognizing International Labor Organization (ILO) standards. Because of the ‘enforce your own laws' process we are using, this becomes a little more complicated. I said at our last meeting on Oman that it would be very useful for Oman to amend their laws into ILO compliance before taking action on this FTA and I am still hopeful this will take place. Let me just point out at the request of my Democratic colleagues on this committee, that on April 6 Mr. Rangel and I sent a letter to the Omani government, specifically outlining the ten areas of deficiency with respect to ILO standards. In the letter we very clearly noted that we need to make sure laws and practices are changed within the country to meet those ten standards.

"As a result, there have been communications with the Government of Oman, letters have been exchanged and further drafts have been reviewed, that move us toward meeting those needs. Significant progress has been made in seven of the ten areas in which we asked for a change in law. Unfortunately, we have still not reached agreement in three of these key areas. Specifically, we lack a commitment from the Omani government to deal with their authority to interfere with the operation of representative committees, which are unions.

"So, in those areas we still need to make additional progress, but Mr. Chairman, perhaps the most difficult deficiency that needs to be overcome - in Bahrain, the government made very specific commitments that showed how, in practice, they were complying with ILO standards. We have not received that from the Government of Oman and deficiencies still exist in all ten areas raised in our letter of April 6. As I look at the letter exchanges, we still have not made sufficient progress in those areas.

"In conclusion, I'd like to point out that many of us were not prepared to support the Bahrain agreement when it was in a similar position before this committee, but additional progress was made before the agreement came up for a vote. As a result, the Bahrain FTA received broad, bi-partisan approval. I am not prepared to support the agreement before us today and I hope additional progress can be made so that we can support the FTA with Oman."

http://www.house.gov/list/press/wm31_democrats/060510_cardin_opening_statement_on_oman_fta.html