BOGOTA, Colombia — The Bush administration has a prescription for fighting coca growing, sidelining Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and saving thousands of jobs in Latin America: extending free trade for Andean nations.
A senior Bush administration official said this week that the White House would push Congress to pass a bill continuing trade benefits for Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia under a little-known law. It wants the bill passed during the "lame-duck session" after the November elections and before the new Congress is sworn in in January -- while free-trade-friendly Republicans are still in control.
The administration has acknowledged that an extension of trade preferences would improve frayed diplomatic relations in Latin America while countering Chavez's influence, analysts said. The White House has mounted an 11th-hour campaign to preserve the trade perks, which have generated thousands of jobs, given birth to entire export industries and provided alternatives to drug trafficking. The benefits are set to expire Dec. 31.
The Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act was initiated in 1991 by then-President George H.W. Bush. U.S.-Colombia trade alone has tripled to $15 billion since 1990, thanks partly to the boom in the flower, apparel, liquor and fresh-produce industries.
Industries such as pouched tuna in Ecuador and asparagus in Peru have sprung up to take advantage of special rules that allow products to enter the U.S. market duty-free. Colombian flower exports have grown 10% annually since 2002 to $758 million in 2005. Flower-related jobs now total 190,000, according to the nation's largest flower growers association.
Expiration of the trade preferences could deliver a death blow to industries that overnight will lose exemptions on duties of 6% to 20%. That margin is crucial to flower growers here and in Ecuador, which face rising competition from countries including China.
This month, Miami-based Dole Fresh Flowers, a major exporter of roses and other flowers to the U.S., announced that it was cutting 3,500 jobs at greenhouses in Colombia and Ecuador, partly because of the uncertainty surrounding free trade.
The nations involved in the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act accepted that one-way trade preferences eventually would be replaced by bilateral free-trade agreements between the U.S. and each of the four countries. The deals, which would give U.S. companies access to Andean markets, would be sealed in international treaties.
