The United States and Colombia have made “very strong progress” toward a deal to address concerns about workers’ rights and anti-union violence that have blocked a free trade pact for more than four years, U.S. trade officials said on Tuesday.
The United States and Colombia have made “very strong progress” toward a deal to address concerns about workers’ rights and anti-union violence that have blocked a free trade pact for more than four years, U.S. trade officials said on Tuesday.
“We have engaged with them every week over the last five weeks and we have made very strong progress,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told a House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has shown a clear commitment to addressing U.S. concerns about the assassination of labor leaders and to strengthening the government’s ability to enforce workers’ rights, Kirk said.
“In many cases we feel like we’re pushing on an open door,” Kirk said, describing the talks.
A deal would clear the way for President Barack Obama to submit the trade agreement to Congress for a vote, something Kirk told the panel Obama wanted to do this year.
It also would jumpstart action on a free trade pact with South Korea, which key U.S. lawmakers have put on hold until Obama sends both the Colombia agreement and a separate deal with Panama to Congress.
The administration of former President George W. Bush negotiated the trade deal with Colombia, which the countries signed in November 2006.
But Democrats, who won control of Congress in elections the same month, objected strongly to the pact on the grounds that then-President Alvaro Uribe had not taken strong enough steps to protect workers’ rights and killings of union leaders by paramilitary and other right-wing groups.
Colombia’s ambassador to the United States Gabriel Silva last week was also upbeat on the talks.
He said the two sides were discussing a “common agenda,” rather than a list of U.S. demands.