Obama, Uribe Cover Pending FTA As Part Of Range Of Issues

Inside Trade

Following this week’s meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, U.S. President Barack Obama predicted that the outstanding issues blocking passage of a bilateral free trade agreement, such as labor and human rights violations, could ultimately be resolved.
“I’m confident that ultimately we can strike a deal that is good for the people of Colombia and good for the people of the United States,” Obama said in a June 29 joint news conference with Uribe. Asked whether the agreement could be passed this year, Obama said he had no “strict timetable” for passage since he has to consult with Congress and it faces a crowded agenda.
Obama said Uribe assured him he is interested in resolving the outstanding issues, and emphasized that there has been “great progress” already in doing so. But he emphasized that the burden for advancing the FTA is not only on Colombia. “It is a matter of getting both countries to a place where their legislatures feel confident that it will be ultimately to the economic benefit of these countries,” Obama said.
Obama said that he has instructed U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to work closely with Colombian officials on how to proceed on the FTA, a process he already launched after the mid-April Summit of the Americas but which has essentially stalled. Under this process, officials were to work out benchmarks that Colombia had to meet to address objections raised by members of Congress to the FTA.
Earlier this year, Kirk expressed hope this process could conclude by the end of the year, and warned against setting benchmarks that were too high (Inside U.S. Trade, May 8).
Uribe met with Kirk and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke this week, and is scheduled to come back to Washington on Sept. 17 to 21 during a U.S. trip where he will attend the United Nations General Assembly, according to a notice on the Colombian embassy website.
Kirk and Uribe “directed their staffs to continue to engage,” a USTR spokeswoman said when asked whether they had discussed benchmarks. On whether there was a timeline for establishing benchmarks, she said “the substance will determine the timing.”
Council of the Americas Vice President Eric Farnsworth this week told Inside U.S. Trade the visit may serve to follow up on the issues raised during this week’s meetings, but it is unclear if there can be progress on the benchmarks by that time. Farnsworth handled Americas issues in the Clinton White House.
Obama said the two leaders discussed the FTA “most prominently” along with the challenges of drug trafficking that affects Colombia and the region as a whole, including the U.S. “responsibilities” to reduce demand for drugs, the gun trafficking and money laundering operations in the hemisphere. A considerable portion of the meeting was taken up discussing the coup in Honduras, where the military has ousted President Manuel Zelaya, according to informed sources.
Obama also said the two governments are looking at ways to cooperate effectively on these issues, along with a positive agenda that will help better the lives of people in the region and Colombia. This includes ways to advance clean energy cooperation, and efforts to improve child nutrition, reduce infant mortality and expand health care to ordinary people, according to Obama.
Uribe in his comments at the press conference emphasized the need for help from the United States and the multilateral development banks to tackle education and child nutrition issues for which Colombia must improve its infrastructure. Uribe also said he discussed with Obama issues that are facing Colombia in terms of security and foreign investment, which he said was linked to the FTA in terms of signaling that Colombia can advance economically.
Uribe then elaborated on this theme in a June 30 speech when he said he sees the FTA as a way to bolster the confidence of foreign investors in his country, moreso than as a way to expand Colombian exports to the United States in the near term.
Uribe at an event organized by the Woodrow Wilson International Center said the FTA is needed to attract foreign investment, which he said is “the only way for Colombia to provide alternatives to the narcotrafficking economy.” Global investors question whether they should invest in Colombia given that the U.S. has not expressed its backing by approving the FTA, saying, “‘I want to put my money in Colombia, but why has the U.S. not yet approved the FTA?’” Uribe said.
Uribe downplayed the impact of the FTA on Colombia’s exports to the United States in the near future. “We don’t see possibilities to increase exports to the United States dramatically in the short term,” he said.
Uribe commented on the FTA only in response to a question, but his prepared speech did highlight that foreign direct investment has increased more than fourfold since his administration took power eight years ago, rising from the range of $500 million-$1.5 billion to $8-9 billion. This year by June 5, Colombia had seen $3.333 billion in FDI despite the economic downturn, he said.
Uribe also said the U.S. failure to approve the FTA has a negative impact on Colombia’s efforts to strike other deals. Countries that might negotiate FTAs with Colombia ask why the U.S. has not yet approved the FTA, Uribe said.
Asked about his June 29 meeting with Obama, Uribe said the president was “very interested” in advancing the relationship with Colombia overall, including on the FTA specifically. But Uribe did not say whether he had learned of any time frame for moving ahead on the FTA nor on the effort to develop so-called benchmarks on labor issues.
Uribe’s prepared speech at the June 30 event covered his administration’s work in combating narcotrafficking criminal organizations, reforming state agencies, revamping public health care and education services, using petroleum tax revenue to fund a vocational training program and reducing poverty.
On labor, Uribe argued his administration has begun to stem anti-union violence, but called for U.S. support in making further progress. “We accept we need much more results, but we need your help,” he said.
Farnsworth said Uribe’s request for help was likely geared at ensuring the United States shares any information it has with Colombia that can help to bring anti-union offenders to justice, as well as showing humility to distance himself from the perception that he is reluctant to ask for help.
Uribe said his administration has fulfilled a campaign pledge to couple “security with democratic values,” by offering protection to Colombians targeted by anti-union violence. Colombian government security forces provide individual protection to 2,000 union leaders, Uribe said, pointing out that “no one with this protection has been killed.”
Uribe said 17 union leaders have been killed in 2009 thus far, from 38 last year. While the country’s overall homicide rate is 33 per 100,000 people, the rate among labor groups is two to three per 100,000, he said. He said the International Labor Organization for the first time has labeled Colombia a “country making progress” on labor issues. This was apparently a reference to a June 18 report by the ILO Committee on the Application of Standards, in which the committee “expressed its appreciation for the positive steps taken by the [Colombian] Government to strengthen the public prosecutor’s office and the resulting progress made in combating violence and the prevailing situation of impunity.”
In advance of the meeting, Reps. Phil Hare (D-IL), Mike Michaud (D-ME) and Diane Watson (D-CA) in their roles as leaders of the Trade Working Group and the International Workers Rights Caucus, urged Obama to raise with Uribe the need to establish the rule of law in Colombia. In a June 25 letter, they charged that Uribe has not shown the sufficient political will to curb extrajudicial killings and other labor rights violations.
In the press conference, Obama obliquely referred to the latest scandal in Colombia over the revelations that the government has been spying on political opponents and their families when he said beyond the steps that have already been taken on the “extrajudicial killings and illegal surveillance,” it is important that Colombia pursue the rule of law and transparency.
“I know that that is something that President Uribe is committed to doing,” he said.
Uribe emphasized he is in the process of restructuring the state agency for surveillance and hopes to issue decrees in the next three weeks that will solve the “endemic problems of these institutions for good.”
Farnsworth said when such scandals come to light in Latin America, it is often a sign that the current administration is reform-minded, allowing the scandals to become publicly known and rooted out.
Obama also alluded to the controversy surrounding Uribe’s efforts to seek a third term, which requires a change in Colombia’s constitution when he said that it is important in any country that its people feel there is no rigging of the electoral process and that their leaders represent them.
The prospect of a third term in office remains a remote possibility, but Uribe faces a strong chance of winning reelection if Colombian law is changed in time for the May 2010 presidential election, sources said.
A legislative effort to change the law and allow the people to approve a third term by referendum has been approved in the Colombian house and senate, but has become delayed in conference committee as members fear legal hurdles, they said. Specifically, they fear the bill could get struck down by the courts if it passes in a form that calls for a referendum on the term limit issue without judicial approval of that referendum, because in Colombian law the courts must approve all referenda set before the people.