Headline roundup 9/20

Latin American exports to the U.S. decline Analysis piece by Miami Herald:
New U.S. government trade statistics are setting off alarm bells among international traders in this corner of the world: Latin American exports to the United States are showing no growth — and in many countries they are falling sharply — amid a worldwide increase in exports to the U.S. market.

Comprehensive reform comeback LA Times opinion piece:
Congress may have failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform this summer (and last summer), but at least it's trying to push a few pieces of it, which no one thought possible in this early-onset election year.
The Times' Nicole Gaouette writes today of the variety of proposals pitched so far, including a plan to give conditional legal status to young illegal immigrants (aka the Dream Act); a path to citizenship for farm workers (aka AgJOBS); and an overhaul of the visa program for high-skilled immigrants. And blogs are abuzz about the bits that make them most mad.


Piecemeal immigration reform a start Opinion piece in San Jose Mercury News chimes in on immigration reform:
High-skilled workers from around the country, including San Jose, met at the Washington Monument for the time-honored American ritual of marching to the front of the Capitol to press their cause. In this case: reforming employment-based immigration laws.
Let's hope it's the beginning of something more: progress in one little corner of our screwed-up immigration system. After the debacle of the big immigration reform bill this summer, Sen. Dianne Feinstein had suggested that the only way to fix any of it was to start piecemeal. Indeed, several independent measures are afoot, aimed at relieving specific areas, from high-skilled workers to guest workers to students. There's no talk of addressing the status of undocumented immigrants, the thing that killed the big bill in June.

Grocers' food safety plan lacking Consumers Union quoted in this report by MarketWatch:
Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, said the GMA plan should include safety reforms such as country-of-origin labeling and stronger FDA recall authority. The group said its polls show that 92% of Americans favor mandatory country of origin labeling and 97% think federal agencies should have the authority to recall tainted meat.
"If the industry is serious about maintaining consumer confidence in the food supply, they must endorse these measures," said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at CU, in a statement.
CU supports the FDA receiving funding to increase its inspection of imports. The advocacy group supports bills in Congress that propose adding user fees on food imports to pay for more border inspection.

Kenya receives support for air freighted produce to UK From AllAfrica.com
The battle to protect Kenyan suppliers of organic produce in their biggest market is heating up with the UK government and UN agency ITC throwing their weight behind developing world growers.
Kenya's organic farmers could see the valuable organic label removed from their products as one of a range of measures being considered by UK-based certifier the Soil Association to reduce the impact of air freight.
The Geneva-based International Trade Centre, jointly set up by the UN and the World Trade Organisation, and the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) say they strongly oppose such a move.
"Organic certification has been hugely successful in reducing poverty for thousands of African farming families. A ban on airfreighted products could be catastrophic for them, while making no contribution to mitigating climate change," said Alexander Kasterine, an ITC expert on trade and environment.