US chemical leader laments Colombia deal defeat

11 April 2008 19:56  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--Congressional defeat of a long-pending US free trade agreement with Colombia comes at the expense of US chemical producers and other manufacturers, industry officials said on Friday.

 

“The free trade agreement with Colombia should have been approved,” said Bill Allmond, director of government relations for the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA).

 

The US House of Representatives voted along party lines on Thursday to sideline the 16-month-old US free trade agreement (FTA) with Colombia by changing House rules governing trade deal voting procedures.

 

The pending treaty, which would eliminate almost all Colombian tariffs on US exports to that country, was set aside in a 224-195 House vote.  Nearly all the set-aside votes, 218, were Democrats while 185 Republicans opposed the action.

 

“This agreement makes sense because 95% of goods from Colombia to the US arrive duty-free,” Allmond noted, “while US goods sold to Colombia still pay duties.”  Colombian exports to the US have been tariff-free since the early 1990s but US exports to Colombia face tariffs as high as 35%.

 

Defeat of the Colombia trade deal followed an earlier congressional approval of a trade deal with Peru.

 

Allmond said the Colombia trade deal fell victim to US election-year politics.

 

“Politically, approving this deal would be highly inconvenient for the two Democratic presidential candidates, both of whom are against this agreement,” Allmond noted.

 

Senators Hillary Clinton (Democrat-New York) and Barack Obama (Democrat-Illinois), the two leading contenders for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, have opposed the Colombia agreement and other trade deals.  Both also are opposed to the 14-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and have indicated they would seek renegotiation of that deal if elected president.

 

“In this election year Democrats are even more unwilling to support free trade initiatives because of strong opposition from their labour union supporters,” Allmond said.

 

“So the Colombia free trade agreement becomes a political casualty at the expense of industries, such as ours, that would have benefited from it,” he added.

By: Joe Kamalick
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