Why a secret non-disclosure agreement only with Bangladesh?

Hasan Murshed

I watched a video interview with prominent journalist Golam Mortoza, Press Minister of the Bangladesh Embassy in the US. He talked about two topics – Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and the total amount of effective tariffs.

Mortoza Sundar said. Half a soft bully. Dr. Yunus, Professor Asif Nazrul, Rizwana Hasan of his School of Orientation also spoke like this. In half a soft bully, he also gave a soft rebuke to NDA critics on social media, asking them to study a little before criticizing.

Critics were saying that no other country had made such an NDA or secret agreement. Ghulam Mortoza said that all countries had made NDAs during tariff negotiations with the United States. He could have named at least a few of these countries, but he did not.

Anyway, my tools for understanding are multiple AIs. If I want to know something, if I want to understand something, I use the tools, I am trying to gain skills. Working with data is part of my profession. AI tools have made many things easier, if you can continue the proper discussion with them, you can dig out a lot of deep information on any topic with proper references.

So, I dug around and found this. Out of the 20 countries with which the US authorities were in talks about reciprocal tariffs in the final phase, only Bangladesh and Malaysia had signed NDAs.

However, there is a big difference between the Bangladesh and Malaysian NDAs. While Bangladesh did not have businessmen at the beginning of the negotiation phase, Malaysia negotiated with their businessmen. As a result, the businessmen knew the terms of the NDA. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has informed the parliament that a negotiation is underway on the condition of confidentiality. He has assured that Malaysia will not cross the red line in the negotiations. In the end, Malaysia did not cross the red line. The Commerce Minister said that they did not agree to compromise on the withdrawal of subsidies to their domestic industry, buying more US products, and above all, sovereignty. As a result, tariffs did not decrease, but increased by 1%. Malaysia’s NDA was not under any written, legal obligation. It is just diplomatic etiquette to keep information secret during negotiations. (If anyone wants to verify this information, they can check it on the Malaysiakini.com site).

On the other hand, the NDA made by Bangladesh is a written, secret agreement that Bangladesh will have to carry. Dr. Devapriya, a close person to this government, said that Bangladesh has not made any such secret agreement with anyone before. The anger of the business leadership has been revealed through the newspaper that they were not included in the negotiation phase.

Again, Article 145(a) of the Constitution of Bangladesh states that “Any agreement, memorandum of understanding (MoU) concluded between Bangladesh and any other state or international organization shall be presented to the National Assembly through the President. However, the President may make an exception to the presentation of such agreement to the Assembly if he considers that it is not conducive to national security or national interest.”

There is no parliament. But was the President informed? No such news has come to light. Of course, raising this question is pointless where the abrogation of the constitution is being discussed.

I don’t know how to talk in half-hearted terms like Golam Mortoza. He spoke the truth in the second context of his video talk. Reciprocal tariff has been fixed countrywise. The previous product-based tariff will be added to it. In the case of Bangladesh, it can be 20%+15%, it can be 20%+16.5%, if a product had 0 tariff before, now it will be 20%+0%.

However, we have not yet received enough information to believe his words are true regarding the first issue, namely the NDA.