Bi-Partisan support for the U.S. – Colombia Free Trade Agreement

April 4, 2008 by SwizStick  
Filed under Education, QuickNews

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From two former White House Chief of Staffs, one Republican (under Ronald Reagan) and the other Democrat (under Bill Clinton). Big hat tip to ShopFloor.org for directing us to this WSJ op-ed:

On the trade front, it is important to understand that, as Under Secretary of Commerce Chris Padilla has said, the U.S. already has free trade with Colombia – but it’s “one-way free trade.” Thanks to the Andean Trade Preferences Act, which Congress passed 16 years ago, Colombian exporters pay tariffs on only 8% of the goods they send to the U.S. Meanwhile, U.S. exporters currently pay tariffs – some as high as 35% — on 97% of the products we sell Colombia.

The U.S.-Colombia FTA would level this uneven playing field, eliminating the tariffs on U.S. goods and creating new market access for U.S. service suppliers. And it would do all of this with a major trading partner. The U.S. exports more to Colombia than Russia, even though Russia has a population that is three times larger and an economy seven times that of Colombia.

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