In an effort to build flagging political support for the U.S.-Colombia free-trade pact, Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez announced Thursday he will lead a bipartisan Congressional delegation to Colombia Feb. 29- March 2. The trip will highlight the benefits of approving the pact, known as the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement. Supporters in both the United States and Colombia have been stymied by widespread criticism in the U.S. that the government of Colombia does not protect the rights of its own labor unions. Gutierrez said the visit will enable the U.S. delegation to see firsthand the progress President Alvaro Uribe's administration has made in labor rights and rule of law. “The U.S.-Colombia TPA would remove tariffs that U.S. goods and agriculture currently face when entering Colombia’s growing market," he said. "This agreement will allow Colombia to continue on the path of progress by lifting economic opportunity in the region. The U.S.-Colombian TPA is not just a trade agreement. It is a national security imperative for our country.”
The delegation will travel to a barrio in Medellín, where they will join Uribe for a town hall meeting. They will also meet with Colombia’s Attorney General Mario Iguaran Arana to discuss the progress the government has made fighting labor-related violence. The U.S. is Colombia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 35 percent of Colombia’s exports and supplying 25 percent of the country’s imports through September, 2007. Colombia-U.S. bilateral trade has more than tripled over the past decade, from $5 billion a year in the early 1990s to approximately $18 billion in two-way trade in 2007. U.S. goods exports in 2007 were $8.6 billion, up from $6.7 billion the previous year. U.S. imports from Colombia were $9.4 billion, up from $9.3 billion.
Journal of Commerce
