Yearwood. Thank you, Mr. Meeks. Thank you for your leadership on Caribbean concerns. I am going to deal with two issues here primarily, and I will leave my colleagues to resolve a few of the others. I believe among the crucial issues that the Caribbean has is competitiveness. And I think to make much better use of U.S.- Caribbean trade arrangements a lot of the competitive problems need to be attended to - How long can you finance a camper. I pointed out in my testament that the IDP they are doing a lot of work on trade assistance. That is going to be important to getting the Caribbean more able to type of have single windows, reduce the expenses of transport, and lower the cost 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 issues that the Caribbean needs to tackle in order to end up being a more competitive location to do service and to trade more efficiently. I didn't want to, however, not take the chance to say something about Haiti. I did live there for 13 years and I do follow what is going on there extremely closely. And I believe it is very important that the HOPE expense not just go to 2020, but go-- there needs to be some sustainability to what is going to succeed the HOPE bill following 2020.
Parliament is unstable to state the least, sort of an interim President that might or might not constitutional. I am not a Haitian constitutional specialist, but I have concerns. But at this point in time, what Haiti requires more than anything else when this particular point of political difficulty is conquered, Haiti is going to require sustainability and stability to its relationship for trade and financial investment with the United States. So I believe that is a vital issue that the Congress requires to keep its eye on. Thank you. Mr. Meeks. Yes, sir. Mr. Farnsworth. If I might simply strengthen what Sally simply stated, the issue of competitiveness is genuine and we handle business neighborhood all the time.
Therefore there has to remain in my view a particular attention to financial investment environment issues. Energy is part of that. It is certainly not the only element. I believe we likewise need to understand unintentional effects. And you have actually done some really great clearly on the trade agenda, Mr. Meeks. Plainly the TPP is something that is a timeshare a good investment Council of the Americas supports. We appreciate your leadership and others of the subcommittee on that. However timeshare donate to charity there are maybe some unexpected consequences. And for example, when the North American Free Trade Agreement was very first passed among the greatest supporters for something that ended up being known as NAFTA Parity was Ambassador Richard Bernal of Jamaica who entered the U.S.
It is a great thing, however we desire to make sure that Jamaica and the other Caribbean countries are not negatively affected by the trade and financial investment diversion that might go to Mexico as an outcome of NAFTA. I believe that was an extremely crucial point then and it is a very crucial point now. And to the degree that TPP goes forward, and once again I hope that it does. I strongly support it and we hope that it is a near term problem. Nonetheless, with some brand-new entrants into fabrics, for instance, and farming that are highly competitive in the wesley law firm worldwide environment that will impact countries in the Caribbean Basin.
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taxpayer support to which we support, however once again the concern is among trade and investment diversion. We need to take care that doing the "ideal thing" with other economies we are not negatively affecting some economies which are currently worried. And so what is the response here? I believe the answer is to return to the initial idea in some method of NAFTA Parity only this is TPP parity, right? If Haiti, for example, depends on the fabrics trade with the United States, we I think require to make sure that whatever we carry out in TPP does not unnecessarily weaken that or doesn't develop troubles in a manner that would eliminate a few of those advantages that Congress has worked so hard over the years to develop.
So my point is that if we take a look at these in a more extensive method, in a manner that where you have a great deal of different, integration of various hairs, then I believe we will concern a better location. And so as we are taking a look at these problems strategically, I simply quite assistance the manner in which you are putting this in the context of it is not just this issue or that concern or another concern, it is all of these together and how can we move on in a detailed integrated way in support of the Caribbean, and I think that is what we need to keep primary in mind.
Bernal. Let me begin by thanking you, Congressman Meeks, for your constant leadership on Caribbean problems. In reaction to the problem that you raise, I believe that the onus is not only on the U.S (How to finance a second home). but is on the Caribbean. We in the Caribbean have to do some things to make it simpler for company to operate and to become globally competitive. I stay persuaded that if we create the best sort of environment between the U.S. and the Caribbean that there is personal sector initiative on financial investment and there are opportunities, very genuine opportunities which can occur by combining Caribbean and U.S.