International Business

Caribbean Jobs Lost to Mexico, Official Says: More than 100 companies that employed 60,000 people in the region have moved to Mexico since it signed a free-trade pact with the United States and Canada, a textile industry official said in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The North American Free Trade Agreement has particularly disrupted the textile industry in the Caribbean and Latin American countries, said Francisco Escobar Thompson, president of the Central American and Caribbean Council for the Defense of the Textile Industry and Ready-Made Clothing. The White House has proposed a bill to lower tariffs and quotas on textile and apparel products made in the 24 Central American and Caribbean nations that take part in the Caribbean Basin Initiative.