Quo Vadis TPA?

Congressional leadership resistance and election year politics are to blame for stalling the passage of the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA), said Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade Christopher A. Padilla last week at the Heritage Foundation. The TPA, previously called the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, was signed by the U.S. and Colombia two years ago in November of 2006, yet it still awaits congressional approval needed for final passage.

Padilla, frustrated with Congress’ inaction, points the finger at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for thwarting the TPA’s progress. The Bush administration sent the agreement to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote in April 2008, but Speaker Pelosi refused to put it up for the vote within the 90-day timeline, breaking procedural rules that grant trade agreements “fast track” authority through Congress. She said earlier this spring, “if brought to the floor immediately, it would lose. And what message would that send?”

Padilla now feels even more confident the TPA will garner enough votes from both sides of the aisle to constitute a “bipartisan majority.” He said, “I believe that if the agreement were put up for a vote and members were allowed to vote their consciences, I think we would get strong bipartisan support.”

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Padilla both escorted more than 25 Democrats to Colombia to see first-hand the transformation taking place there as a result of integrating Colombia into the global economy. Padilla said, “It’s fair to say they all came back very impressed with the progress and transformation in that country.”

Currently, about ten or 11 Democrats disagree with Pelosi’s freeze on the TPA, including representatives Gregory Meeks (NY), Joseph Crowley (NY), Jim Matheson (Utah), and Jim Cooper (Tenn.).

The irony of congressional resistance to the TPA, according to Padilla, is that the U.S. already has free trade with Colombia, since the passage of the Andean Trade Preferences Act in 1991, an effort to alleviate poverty and combat drug trafficking in Colombia. One aspect of the act was Plan Colombia, in which the U.S. had “completely and unilaterally thrown open its markets to almost everything Colombia makes to come into the United States duty free.”

For almost 17 years, an estimated 92 percent of Colombian exports entering the U.S. are tariff free, and Congress votes every couple of years to renew this trade preference. The TPA in contention today would make the trade preferences Colombia already enjoys permanent, ensuring trade security for Colombia.

But while Colombia enjoys preferential duty-free benefits, the free trade is only one-way. U.S. exports to Colombia are still heavily taxed with costly tariffs. For example, Colombian coffee and bananas enters the U.S. with a zero percent tariff, but a can of Pepsi made in the U.S. pays a 20 percent tariff when sent to Colombia, and an apple grown in Pennsylvania pays a 15 percent tariff.

More than $1.1 billion in tariffs have been levied on U.S. exports to Colombia since the signing of the agreement almost 600 days ago, hurting U.S. farmers, ranchers and small business owners. The TPA would eliminate, or at least drastically reduce, these costly tariffs levied on American goods.

To Padilla, the economic argument for the TPA is a “no-brainer.” He asks, “Why would we continue to give duty free access to all these Colombian products while refusing the opportunity to eliminate $1.1 billion in tariffs?”

From a foreign relations perspective, Padilla strongly feels that stalling on TPA is punishing Colombia when Colombia is one of the U.S.’s strongest allies in Central America, not to mention they are “winning the battle” against the domestic terrorist groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Padilla calls Colombia a “model” for countries like Iraq and Afghanistan in the war against terror, and thinks Congress is turning its back on an ally.

“Why in the world when we have this ally in Colombia that is not only fighting terrorism but fighting terrorists that are getting, it appears, support from neighbors like [Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez,” said Padilla. “Why would we turn our back on an ally like that?”

Pelosi and other democrats usually cite labor union concerns as justification to ignore the TPA. Padilla acknowledges that there has been violence in the past (39 union leaders killed in Colombia last year, and 17 killed in 2008, according to U.S. labor movement estimates), yet he says Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has made enormous strides in quelling violence in his country since he took office five years ago. One notable example is the city Medellin, previously the murder capital of the world, but now with a lower rate of murder than Baltimore, Maryland.

The fact that Democrats are shying away from trade agreements abroad is symptomatic of economic anxiety at home, Padilla says. People in the U.S. are worried about losing their jobs, rising food prices and energy costs, and it seems natural to want to slip into economic isolation to remedy this. But Padilla warns economic isolation is not a cure for economic anxiety. He stresses the TPA would benefit U.S. farmers, ranchers and small business owners by creating jobs through economic integration with other countries such as Colombia, and relieve the burden of costly tariffs on U.S. exports.

The 110th Congress must vote on the TPA before this session ends, Padilla urges. Colombia’s trade preferences expire next on December 31, 2008, and if the agreement is not passed, the U.S. may risk losing a valuable ally in Central America.

“It deserves a vote in the Congress of the United States,” said Padilla. “At the minimum, it deserves a hearing and a straight up-or-down vote.”

It should be noted that Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid inspected the agreement and found it deceptive. “This Colombia agreement, for example, has 18 pages devoted to caring for the environment through new institutions and arrangements,” Kincaid writes. “You don’t have to read past the preamble to see that it puts the U.S. further down the road of sovereignty-destroying ‘hemispheric integration.’”

Emily Miller is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.