Former President Danilo Medina, during a gathering in Jarabacoa where more than 2,000 new members of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) were sworn in, criticized the current government for its handling of rice imports and protection of national producers. Medina recalled that President Luis Abinader, in December 2024, issued a decree intending to set an import quota for the cereal from the United States and a 99 % tariff on volumes exceeding that quota. According to the former head of state, the measure violated the existing Free Trade Agreement and should have been repealed.
Quotas and tariffs under DR‑CAFTA
DR‑CAFTA, which sets the expiration of protection quotas for January 1, 2025, became controversial when Abinader’s decree attempted to reinstate protectionist measures. Medina argued that the existing regulations had already eliminated the quotas and that introducing a new 99 % tariff was incompatible with the treaty and harmed local producers.
Relation to the history of rice in the DR
Medina highlighted the progress achieved during his administration, when genetic improvement programs were implemented together with specialists to increase yields per hectare. With the introduction of improved varieties, productivity rose from 4 100 to 5 100 quintals per hectare, strengthening the island’s rice industry. “The country had reached the point of producing enough rice for domestic demand,” he explained, adding that growing imports were a threat to self‑sufficiency.
Attempt to extend the treaty’s validity
According to Medina, during his term he personally raised the issue with the then‑U.S. President Donald Trump, requesting a ten‑year additional waiver so that the Dominican Republic could prepare and improve its productivity. The request, the former president said, resulted in a deputy secretary arriving in the DR in 2019, but the process was interrupted by the change of government and the pandemic.
Criticism of the Abinader administration
Speaking through Johnny Pujols, PLD general secretary, Medina described Abinader’s decree as “populist, demagogic, singing like roosters,” adding that those responsible “had to go out acting like hens, with a decree whose reasons no one knows why they changed it.” The criticism points to a lack of technical basis and the imposition of measures that, according to Medina, do not comply with the legal framework of DR‑CAFTA.
Source credits: n.com.do
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