Support to Approve FTA with Colombia and Panama

It should be emphasized that in President Obama’s first report on the State of the Union, due to repercussions in Latin America, the U.S. has affirmed that “it will strengthen [its] trade relations with key partners like South Korea, Panama and Colombia.” The Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with these countries have yet to be approved because of the opposition of Democrats in Congress and their syndicated allies. The support of the current U.S. regime will be crucial to receiving that approval, which had previously appeared very unlikely.

The Republicans will ratify their support for opening free trade with Colombia and Panama, said Sen. Mitch McConnell, the leader of the party. This is to say that, like Peru, the two countries have an FTA currently enforced in the short term.

If Ecuador’s neighboring countries have two separate FTAs, the result will generate a disadvantage for the Ecuadorian commercial sector in the U.S. market, which makes up over 50 percent of the country’s exports, and every so often, the uncertainty over the renewal of Andean preferences is rekindled. If the two neighboring countries have their trade agreements in place, an agreement with Ecuador would only need to be added to them, since Bolivia is currently excluded from the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA).

Former Chancellor [Fander] Falconí met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington in June last year and expressed the willingness of the government to “maintain a stable relationship of mutual benefit and cooperation with the United States, Ecuador’s largest trading partner.” Falconi then raised the need to discuss a diverse agenda, which includes the issue of migration, combating drug trafficking and human rights.

It is absurd to shut out the possibility of trade liberalization because of ideological bias, especially when it is being intensified in Latin America and the world, and when it has produced positive rewards in the neighboring nations of Peru and Chile.