What’s the beef behind the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA)?

On Jansing & Co this morning on MSNBC, Chris Jansing spoke about the divide between President Obama, Harry Reid and union leaders.  I tuned in to listen with the desire to find out exactly what the issue was.  When the report was complete, all that I heard which made any sense was the union’s concern over the deaths of union leaders in Colombia and the lack of enforcement.  It was then that I decided to search and discover what I could.  Here is a portion of what I found as provided by www.ustrade.gov.

“The United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, sometimes called the Colombia Free Trade Agreement or FTA, was signed on November 22, 2006.  It’s a comprehensive free trade agreement and when it enters into force it will immediately eliminate most of its tariffs on U.S. exports, with all remaining tariffs phased out over defined time periods, include important disciplines relating to customs administration and trade facilitation, technical barriers to trade, government procurement, investment, telecommunications, electronic commerce, intellectual property rights, and labor and environmental protection.  It will allow U.S. firms will have better access to Colombia's services sector than other WTO Members have under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.  Colombia's Congress approved the agreement and a protocol of amendment in 2007.  Colombia's Constitutional Court completed its review in July 2008, and concluded that the Agreement conforms to Colombia's Constitution.”  All this does not sound like a bad deal to me but I think that there may be more to this disagreement than was explained in that segment.  The thing that was involved security for union leaders and the amendment appears to answer that.

“The Obama Administration has made clear that our trade agreements must be consistent with our

core values and interests, including effectively protecting workers’ rights, and enable

American workers and businesses to compete on a level playing field.  To achieve these

twin objectives, we must ensure that our trading partners meet basic labor standards and

protect basic labor rights.  The U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (“the Agreement”) includes strong protections for workers’ rights, based on the May 10, 2007 bipartisan Congressional Executive agreement to incorporate high labor standards into America’s trade agreements.  In addition, President Obama insisted that a number of serious and immediate labor concerns be addressed before he would be willing to send the Agreement to Congress.  These concerns include violence against Colombian labor union members; inadequate efforts to bring perpetrators of murders of such persons to justice;

and insufficient protection of workers’ rights in Colombia.  As a result, the U.S. and Colombian governments have agreed to an ambitious and comprehensive Action Plan that includes major, swift and concrete steps the Colombian government has agreed to take to address outstanding labor concerns. “Since these items are already addresses and the problem still isn’t clear, I am left with only one alternative and that would be because it may not have yet been put in front of Congress.  If so then hope it to be done soon but we shall wait and hope o hear more about this issue.