US/Colombia trade agreement must face Congress

United States signed Wednesday a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Colombia, which promises to strengthen economic ties between both countries by eliminating tariffs and other barriers to goods and services and expanding trade.

The agreement will offer new opportunities for U.S. "businesses, manufacturers, farmers and ranchers," and provide Colombia with "permanent access to the U.S. market, which will aid in sustaining real growth, creating more jobs and attracting new investment," said John Veroneau, deputy U.S. Trade Representative.

Veroneau signed the agreement on behalf of the United States with Colombian Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism Jorge Humberto Botero in Washington. The agreement must now face approval by both countries legislatures.

However there are obstacles because members of the U.S. Congress have indicated they would not vote in favor of the pact unless it is rewritten to contain more protections for labor rights and the environment, and because of sensitivities that imports of Colombian sugar might threaten U.S. sugar producers.

US private-sector sources are reported to have said that getting Congress to approve the Colombia FTA would be more difficult than securing approval of a U.S.-Peru trade agreement because Colombia has a history of blocking union organizers.

Both the Colombian and Peruvian FTAs must be acted on by the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees before they can be considered by the full Congress. In the wake of the midterm U.S. elections and the change in political control of Congress in January 2007, incoming Ways and Means Democratic Committee Chairman Charles Rangel has said that he plans to raise worker rights issues when the accords come before his committee.

Hernando José Gomez, Colombia's chief trade negotiator, has said he expects the Colombian congressional approval process to be finished by January 2007, after which Colombia would submit the agreement to its constitutional court for review, according to news reports.

Bilateral trade between Colombia and US reached 14.3 billion US dollars in 2005.

Colombia currently benefits from the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA), which also provides trade preferences to Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. Under that agreement, which is set to expire at the end of 2006, many of Colombia's exports have been allowed to enter the United States duty-free. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said November 14 that it supports an extension of expiring ATPA trade preferences for the four countries.

According to a USTR fact sheet, under the agreement, more than 80 percent of U.S. exports to Colombia -- including high-quality beef, cotton, wheat, soybeans and soy meal, key fruits and vegetables and some processed foods -- immediately would become duty-free, and duties for the remainder of exports would be phased out over 10 years.

The United States and Colombia also have worked to resolve food safety barriers to trade, including procedures for inspections of beef, pork and poultry, USTR said.

Some provisions of the agreement provide for:

• Duty- and quota-free access to both countries' textile markets, provided the products meet the agreement's rules of origin provisions;
• Expanded access for U.S. providers to Colombia's services markets, such as in the financial sector;
• Greater protection in Colombia for intellectual property rights of such U.S. products as computer software, music and videos, and more protection for U.S. patents and trademarks; and
• More public access to Colombian government information about customs requirements.