In U.S., Trade Hits Stiff Head Wind

U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab and South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong signed a free-trade agreement in June 2007 that is pending approval from the U.S. Congress. (By Pablo Martinez Monsivais -- Associated Press)

Colombian business leaders, however, offer a very different picture. They say that the expanded trade preferences already being offered to Colombia by the United States, which would be made permanent by the passage of a comprehensive free-trade agreement, have created a large number of desperately needed jobs. They especially credit export-fueled gains in their apparel and fresh-cut flower industries for helping spark an economic renaissance in cities including Medellin and Cali, where violent crime and unemployment have dropped sharply in recent years.

Colombia's current trade preferences expire this month. Though administration officials and Democrats alike say an extension is likely to pass soon, a full-blown trade deal, the Colombians say, would help them solidify gains by avoiding the need for a congressional renewal every few years. Additionally, a free-trade accord would offer reciprocity for the first time, granting U.S. companies, which must pay tariffs on their exports to Colombia, the same duty-free status with the United States that most Colombian exporters enjoy.

"I honestly can't understand the economic argument against the deal," said Eduardo Herrera, president of Supertex, a leading Colombian apparel exporter in Cali. "The U.S. is helping us solve our own problems with narco-trafficking and violence by helping us create legitimate jobs through trade preferences. Now we're saying, 'Let's make that permanent, and we'll open our market to you as well.' Why wouldn't they want that?"

Congressional opposition has confronted the administration with a dilemma. If it forces a vote on Colombia in the current climate, it could score the first defeat in modern history of a successfully negotiated U.S. trade deal. But if it does not try, analysts say it risks sending a message overseas that America's doors to trade are temporarily closed.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab argued this week for moving ahead with a vote. Though she would not offer a timeline, some administration officials have called for that to happen no later than this spring. "Right now, free-trade agreements are being negotiated all over the world without us," she said. "Sitting on our hands is not going to make the U.S. more competitive. It is not going to create one single solitary job."

Timelines are even less certain for accords with Panama and South Korea. A vote on Panama is not likely until at least after the expected departure in September of its National Assembly president, who was charged in the United States with killing a U.S. serviceman. The Korean deal, meanwhile, is almost certain not to move to a vote until Seoul lifts a four-year-old ban on U.S. beef stemming from the 2003 mad cow scare in Washington state.

But given the opposition to the agreements, both are likely to remain on ice until at least after the U.S. elections in November.