The international financial community has made it clear that external assistance must be met with increases in the domestic revenues devoted to post-war reconstruction. Pressures, indeed conditionality, that link the availability of outside financing to tax reform are entirely appropriate. This issue is currently being debated in Guatemala. Improvements and increases in tax collection, and tax reform that is progressive rather than regressive, are fundamental components of an economic policy to meet post-war goals and satisfy basic needs. In addition, President Clinton pledged to avoid mass deportations of immigrants in the United States, and reiterated the pledge to work toward establishing a Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005.
Principles are important, as they guide action.
Although specific actions that will result from the summit remain vague, I would like to suggest additional policy considerations that might inform future U.S. policy. The first concerns immigration. There is perhaps no better way to undermine peace processes and U.S. foreign policy goals in several Central American countries than to make it impossible for hundreds of thousands of immigrants to remain legally in this country. El Salvador provides the most compelling example. The numbers of people affected from Guatemala and Nicaragua are lower, but the phenomenon is the same.