Free Trade Agreements: Standing on One Leg

Free Trade Agreements: Standing on One Leg

Colombian and Panamanian Human Rights Records Hinder Free Trade Agreement

• Panama and Colombia’s human rights records are poor and will defy cosmetic rehabilitation.

• Obama’s credibility will be on the line if he tries to distort reality in order to justify that conditions are right for a Free Trade Agreement to be implemented.

• President Obama voted before against a Free Trade Agreement and should do it again.

In 2004, the Bush Administration, with great concentration, rammed through the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), solidifying a free market pact between the United States and the countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. The United States Congress is currently considering the ratification of legislation to extend similar free trade agreements (FTAs) to Colombia and Panama. Two FTA measures, the Trade Promotion Agreement and the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act, are currently facing gridlock in the U.S. Congress, with their outcome still in doubt. The proposed agreements continue to stir political, social and economic unrest in the affected nations as different parties and groups clash over such issues as sustainable economic growth, along with development and acceptable human rights standards.

The bills introducing the formation of individual FTAs between the United States and two of its trading partners, Colombia and Panama, were first drafted between the Bush Administration and the presidents of their respective countries, and have experienced prolonged delays. In Washington, the remaining FTAs are mainly being blocked by Democratic legislators. Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), a proponent of the FTAs, reintroduced the bills with no co-sponsors on December 16, 2009, after which it was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee. The Colombian Congress already has acted on the FTA, which was signed by President Álvaro Uribe in November 2006 and now only awaits Washington’s ratification and the White House's signature. The FTA with Panama occupies a similar status, having been ratified by that country’s National Assembly on June, 28, 2007. It too awaits approval from Washington’s legislative branches.

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This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Kathleen Ziminsky

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