The National Association of Private Enterprise, or ANEP in Spanish, is the equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce in the United States. Representing eight thousand companies and forty-one trade associations, it’s proud to claim El Salvador’s current president, Elias Antonio Saca, as a past president of the association. Not surprisingly, ANEP receives visitors in a very impressive building in San Salvador. There are fresh flowers everywhere. Even though there are no female members of the association, there are lots of young women in smart suits who bring everyone in our delegation water and coffee.
Our host lets us sip our coffee for about fifteen minutes before he comes in to speak with us. He tells us about his association, and about ANEP’s advocacy for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). He allows our delegation’s interpreter, Walter, to translate for him, but it soon becomes apparent that he could probably speak with us in English if he wanted. He stops Walter several times to point out that he’s translated something in a way that’s not quite what he has in mind.
Paging through the mounds of glossy brochures that we receive, it’s hard to imagine what the association could say that would explain what’s in it for ANEP and its members when it comes to CAFTA. When EL Salvador negotiated the trade agreement with the United States government and representatives from American big business, El Salvador didn’t ask for much. On the other hand, in many ways, El Salvador doesn’t have much to give. The country doesn’t have oil like Venezuela or copper like Chile. El Salvador’s forests aren’t rich like Brazil’s rain forests, and few people are professionals or business owners as you might find in Argentina. El Salvador’s wealth is in its people, which suits the trade agreement, since it’s primarily aimed at finding cheap labor markets for U.S. businesses. But it’s hard to understand what El Salvador and ANEP might think is the payoff for them from the trade agreement. Someone asks our host if there’s anything that El Salvador could produce that might find a viable market in the United States. After all, CAFTA is supposed to be about opening markets in every direction to anyone who can compete. He thinks about this for awhile. It’s possible, he says, that a company in El Salvador might be able to export a product like horchata, a sweet milk-based drink that’s popular with Mexicans and Salvadorans alike. There are so many Salvadorans in the United States, he says, that a Salvadoran company might be able to sell horchata to them. Sounds like a plan.
