Revisiting the U.S. - Colombia Free Trade Agreement
Discussion surrounding the U.S. - Colombia Free Trade Agreement resurfaced this week in the news and in Washington after President Obama asked U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Ron Kirk, "to lead a review of the Colombia agreement to deal with outstanding issues there." According to CQ Politics, in a conference call with reporters on Monday, "Kirk said that while progress has been made toward addressing those concerns, there are 'a number of issues that need to be resolved.'" Yet, he also noted that President Obama believes that "a resolution of the Colombia trade agreement would be a good thing for both economies" and that "President Obama believes very strongly, as do I, that Colombia is a very important ally for the United States." The apparent decision to restart the process worries some that President Obama is backing down from the strong stance he maintained against the Colombia FTA during the presidential campaign. For example, during the October debate he said that "the history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis, and there have not been prosecutions, and what I have said because the free trade — the trade agreement itself does have labor and environmental protections, but we have to stand for human rights, and we have to make sure that violence isn’t being perpetrated against workers who are just trying to organize for their rights." Some analysts, such as Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue, have suggested, according to the El Tiempo, that Obama's decision to renew talks about the Colombia FTA has more to do with the United States' need to show the world that it is not going to follow a protectionist path in order to counteract the economic crisis. And that it is unlikely that the Colombia FTA will be passed this year. Regardless, a few members of Congress are already showing their opposition to any movement for passing the Colombia FTA. According to the Wall Street Journal, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has expressed his opposition and "said he would introduce legislation to put pending trade deals on hold until a federal commission and the Government Accountability Office studied the benefits of existing trade policies." Despite the Obama administration's apparent push to start moving the process forward, it appears that the Administration has not completely made a complete shift in terms of its concerns about the violence against labor leaders in Colombia. Both Ambassador Kirk and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have said this week that there still remain issues to resolve before the trade agreement can move forward or be passed. This week's news coverage on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement can be found here.