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July 29, 2005

Original Article (Spanish)

The extreme poverty of Washington’s offer contrasts sharply with its excessive ambition to ship its products to the Colombian market.

The two U.S. proposals received by the Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday and Thursday, were described as unacceptable by the Society of Colombian Agriculturists (SAC), the reason being, according to the president of the guild, Rafael Mejía, “conditions do not yet exist for holding a bilateral round of agricultural talks,” which have been postponed since last July 11. 

During previous negotiations for the Free Trade Agreement [U.S.-Andean Free Trade Agreement], Colombia asked the United States to immediately open its markets to its products, to which the Americans offered to eliminate tariffs in terms of five, ten or more years.

After that frustrating answer, Mejía said, the United States sought the immediate opening of the Colombian market, seeking even more favorable terms, "which is little less than inconceivable.”

In the same manner, he added, the American negotiators flatly deny the distortions of production and commerce caused by their own subsidies to [agricultural] production and disavow the size and structural differences between their own farming and agro-industrial economy with Colombia’s.

In a letter sent to the ministers of Commerce and Agriculture, Jorge Humberto Botero and Aryan Andrés Felipe, and to Colombia’s chief negotiator, Hernando Jose Go'mez, Mejía wrote that the government should propose that the United States lower medium and long-term duties on farmers whose produce is denied entry due to sanitary rules and technical obstacles.

Thus far, "the proposals for negotiations on products of interest to Colombia have resulted in less than nothing ... the United States satisfied none of our (Colombia’s) requests in issues related to farming and livestock,” insisted the SAC president.

For that reason, the group has asked the Government to take a firm position and confront the government of the United States, so that this country adjusts and significantly improves the fairness of the proposals before a resumption of bilateral talks, allowing for more viable negotiations.

The approval of CAFTA [Central American Free Trade Agreement] this past Thursday has lead Colombian trade union leaders to say that there is no longer any excuse to delay negotiations on the Andean Free Trade Agreement, which, according to the tone of SAC, will likely remain at a standstill due to the inflexibility of American negotiators.