The US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA)

Although the media coverage related to the FTA has died down, some of you had asked me to give my thoughts on the issue, so here goes, albeit a bit late!
The debate regarding the FTA was big news, both here in Colombia and in the United States. Colombian media reports showed Colombian President Álvaro Uribe and President Bush urging its approval, while Democracts such as Pelosi, Obama and Clinton came out strongly against it. So, why are Bush and Uribe pushing so hard to get it signed, and why are the Democrats putting up such resistance?
Since the debate regarding consequences for US workers and consumers is discussed in the US media (ie, "we want our goods at the lowest possible price" vs. "we lose our jobs because they go overseas"), I will focus on how the FTA impacts Colombia. Before getting into detail, in a nutshell:
The major concerns regarding the FTA:
• Signing an economic agreement with the Colombian government in the first place, members of which are implicated in human rights violations and drug trafficking
• The FTA requires Colombia to lift its subsides, but not the USA
• Lack of legislation to protect the environment
• Lack of legal protections of human and labor rights of Colombian workers, especially union members, as well as Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities
(Note: the Democrats opened the debate regarding the lack of human rights protection for union leaders and focused their opposition on this point. Unfortunately, they have limited their position to this factor without opening the discussion to wider issues)
Subsidies
First, to even call it a "Free" Trade Agreement is deceiving. The idea of free trade is that all tariffs and obstacles to foreign investment between two countries or regions are lifted. In theory, with import taxes eliminated, whoever produces such and such good most cheaply can export it at low cost, and thus consumers can purchase a product at the lowest possible price.
However, like NAFTA before it, this FTA neglects to eliminate the subsidies given by the US government to US farmers, particularly to corn, sugar and cotton producers. Therefore, whereas Colombia is obliged to get rid of its taxes for imported goods, the US is not. It is not a truly free agreement if one nation requires the other to eliminate all its import taxes, while the former refuses to do so. For this exact reason, countries like Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela rejected a previously proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), that would have essentially expanded NAFTA to the entire hemisphere. Consequently, the US is seeking trade agreements one country at a time.
Environmental and human rights protections
Tariffs aside, one must also consider how the FTA would impact not only the Colombian and US economies at the macro level, but also the workers and communities on the micro level. For a trade agreement to be truly 'free', the rights of all must be protected, respected, and guaranteed. Therefore, one must guarantee not simply the interests of international companies but also the economic, environmental and human rights of the local inhabitants.
First, the FTA grossly lacks environmental protections. The goal of the trade agreement is explicit: to privatize and exploit Colombia's natural resources. Among them are oil, minerals, as well as abundant water, forests and plant biodiversity. One step in the right direction was a chapter added by US Democrats, which requires that the price paid for harvested wood would reflect the cost not only of the wood itself but also reforestation. Still, there is no means of implementing this condition, added to the fact that the FTA enables transnational corporations to operate above Colombian environmental law (which already lacks sufficient environmental regulations). Neither does the FTA account for the inevitable destruction due to petroleum, mining or hydroelectric projects.
Now, it is the choice of such and such country to extract or not its own resources. However, the majority of the precious natural resources at stake with the FTA are located on Indigenous and Afro-Colombian community lands. The FTA would enable the privatization of these resources, which threatens these people's right to their intellectually property rights, as well as to even stay on their land. This could increase the already dire situation seen in Colombia with close to 4 million internally displaced people. The FTA does not address the concerns of these already historically exploited populations with environmental and human rights protections. This essentially gives free reign to multinational businesses to legally purchase these resources and keep the profits for themselves. Yes, the national GDP would go up, but it is doubtful that these endeavors would substantially benefit the people of Colombia.
Labor and the Colombian government
Apart from extracting natural resources, corporations are also interested in benefiting from low labor costs in Colombia, relative to the USA or other nations. At issue here are laborers in the oil industry, the textile industry, or those that work on banana or African palm plantations, for example. Colombia is already renowned as one of the most dangerous countries in which to organize labor unions: since 1991, over 2,500 labor leaders have been assassinated. This year alone at least 17 more have been killed. These deaths are often at the hands of paramilitaries working for multinational corporations, such as Chiquita Banana, Coca Cola, and oil companies like British Petroleum and Occidental.
As for the FTA, rather than attempt to strengthen labor rights, it actually omits a worker's right to strike. This glaring omission is on top of the already general lack of labor protections. Even prior to the drafting of the FTA, Uribe showed himself to be anti-labor, by reversing previous labor legislation protection measures (lengthening the work day to 10 hours, reducing compensation for work done on national holidays and for those fired unjustly).
In any case, not only has the Colombian government failed to adequately protect the rights of its own union leaders, indigenous populations, etc., but many of its politicians are themselves involved in criminal activity and human rights violations. At the moment, many members of Congress and the military are under investigation or incarcerated for working alongside paramilitary groups involved in drug trafficking and human rights violations. Furthermore, the atrocities committed by the state are drastically illustrated in the history of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. According to the PC, since its founding as a neutral nonviolent community in 1997, approximately 160 of the 180 assassinations of PC members have been at the hands of the state and their paramilitary allies. Currently, however, impunity reigns for the authors of these crimes. Additionally, there is a Captain from the Colombian Army currently in prison for his ties with the massacre that took place in the community in 2005.
Is this the kind of government that prioritizes the rights of its workers, peasants and indigenous populations under a free trade agreement? If the FTA was truly about improving the lives of the Colombian people, their rights and benefits of this 'development' would be at the forefront of the agreement. After analyzing the FTA, however, one realizes that its aim is to enhance the wealth of multinational companies and their elite Colombian counterparts.
US presidential politics
As for the debate within the United States, it is obvious why Bush, backed by multinational businesses, has argued so fiercely for the FTA. As for Obama and Clinton, the theme only emerged while campaigning in Pennsylvania. Therefore, in order to win over the large contingent of labor interests in that state opposed to free trade agreements, they both came out against the FTA with Colombia. I'd argue that while Obama's opposition appears to be authentic, Clinton's stance is contradictory. The Bill Clinton administration she praises so much, and on which she bases her campaign argument of 'experience,' itself pushed through NAFTA. Further, one of Hillary's top campaign aids was also part of a group in charge of getting the FTA passed in the US…
In any case, since PA, the debate has been at a standstill. Hopefully, it will remain stalled until the issues raised above are addressed!