Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Trading with Colombia

Finally, finally, I see public acknowledgment of a key aspect of U.S. economic policy toward Colombia that is usually obscured.  Back in 2008, I asked the following:

If Colombia benefits now, and the U.S. doesn’t, then how does an FTA benefit both of us? Right now, Colombia has access but also protection of domestic industry, and an FTA gets rid of the latter.

So you can ignore all the arguments you hear ad nauseam about how essential an FTA is for Colombia, as House Republicans are finally discussing the real reason they support an FTA, which is that the status quo benefits Colombia too much.  From the new Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee:

Without a timetable on all three agreements, Mr. Camp said, conservatives weren't likely to back an extension of the Andean trade program, because it reduced tariffs on Colombian exporters without lowering them on U.S exports to Colombia, as a trade agreement would do.

The key benefit of an FTA for Colombia is to avoid the constant stress of renewal deadlines for trade preferences.

Posted by Greg Weeks at 10:12 AM
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5 comments:

Defensores de Democracia,  11:32 AM  

Mr Weeks

Your articles show a Good Analysis of Free Trade Agreements inside the Western Hemisphere.

The Political benefits for both nations are immense. There is another aspect and that is "International Security" ...

The "Arab Revolutions" show that the World is becoming increasingly complicated and that we are not in 1946 or 1947, when American Foreign Policy was a "piece of cake".

A backward Latin America in economic and political terms is the worst possible imaginable scenario for the future security of the United States, Canada, Latin American and the Caribbean nations.

Economic Security is much better than Military Security, think of the useless expenses in aircraft carriers and Robot Airplanes that only God knows who are going to kill.

Vicente Duque

leftside,  1:19 PM  

That is an important point Greg and it might be part of the GOP calculus. But passing of the Colombia FTA is all about Hugo Chavez - for the GOP but also for the Dems. There is little difference on that point.

ConsDemo,  8:41 PM  

But passing of the Colombia FTA is all about Hugo Chavez - for the GOP but also for the Dems. There is little difference on that point.

Hugito certainly likes to think everyone in Washington D.C. spends there every waking moment fantasizing about him but I'm hard pressed to find concrete examples. Please explain how the FTA has anything to do with Chavez?

Slave Revolt,  3:14 AM  

ConserDem, believe me, the twits that support the US empire are mafiosos. They spend every waking minute hating any one and anybody that threatens their illegitimate power and rancid looting of wealth.

They bare worse than even the most dogmatic Moaists or Kemer Rouge types.

Believe me, Chavez and the left governments and movements sends these crooks into conniptions.

The historical record is rife with documentary evidence of how wacky imperialists are in their quest for domination and total enslavement of indigenous people and the working class.

Are you dense from indoctrination--or are you just posing this way to needle people whose minds haven't been colonized by the cradle to grave propaganda that we suffer Under neo-feudal crapitalism?

ConsDemo,  6:18 AM  

To the poster posing as "Slave Revolt":

Actually, I'm could be convinced by evidence, not rants from ideologues. If leftside has some evidence the FTA is motivated by some antipathy to Chavez, I'll look at it. Merely asserting it is so, as you do, shows the narrow ideological prism in which you operate but doesn't prove anything.

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