Panama
The United States and Panama signed a free trade agreement on Thursday with only a few days to spare before key US legislation expires.
Presidents Manuel Zelaya, Honduras, and Martin Torrijos, Panama, will sign a free trade agreement in this capital on Friday, after bilateral negotiations that concluded last month in the Panamanian capital.
Caterpillar Inc vice president Tom Gales cited a major construction project the country is embarking on—the expansion of the Panama Canal—as one reason why the trade agreement is essential. The expansion is the world’s largest public works project since the Three Gorges Dam was constructed in China.
When it comes to U.S. trade policy, in recent years it has seemed more difficult to gain bipartisan agreement among American policy-makers than to negotiate with foreign governments.
In testimony given Wednesday, May 16, before the United States International Trade Commission in Washington D.C., the Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) vice president with responsibility for Latin America emphasized why a Panama Trade Promotion Agreement will be remarkably beneficial for the U.S., Panama and the region.
Full text of the bipartisan trade deal reached between the US’ Democrat-led Congress and the Bush Administration
As crunch time nears, Peru, Colombia and Panama have embarked on a nearly unprecedented lobbying effort to salvage their free-trade agreements with Washington.
Failure by the US Congress to approve free trade agreements with Latin American countries will have “huge political consequences” in the region, US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez warned Monday.
At literally minutes to midnight on April 1, the United States signed a free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korean negotiators and rushed it to Congress. Congress now has 90 days to review the Korea, Peru, Colombia, and Panama agreements, before fast track authority expires on June 30.
President George W. Bush notified Congress on Friday that he plans to sign a free trade agreement with Panama.
A Bush administration proposal aimed at winning Democratic party support for free trade agreements with Peru, Colombia and Panama falls short of what is needed to strengthen the labor provisions of those pacts, a Democratic lawmaker said on Monday.
A Bush administration proposal aimed at winning Democratic party support for free trade agreements with Peru, Colombia and Panama falls short of what is needed to strengthen the labor provisions of those pacts, a Democratic lawmaker said on Monday. It "misses the point" and shifts the focus from improving conditions for workers to a legalistic debate over whether a foreign country’s law are equivalent to those of the United States, he said.
The Popular Alternative Party (PAP) reported the Free Trade Treaty’s (FTT) negative effects on the economy and Panamanian society and in this way rejected its signing.
The Bush administration is unlikely to reach a deal with the Democratic-led Congress to salvage free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and Peru, the AFL-CIO said on Friday.
Costa Rica also announces to sign a FTA with Panama in the next three months
Draft as of 19 January 2007
The Bush administration said Wednesday it will renegotiate the language covering labor rights in free trade agreements it has reached with Peru, Colombia and Panama, in order to get the deals approved by the new Democratic Congress. The three countries have already been notified.
Just before Christmas trade negotiators for the United States and Panama announced that a deal had been reached on a US-Panama Free Trade Agreement. However, at the time this issue of The Panama News was uploaded the text of the agreement was still being withheld from the public in both countries and the Panamanian government was disputing one of the key claims about the deal that was made on the US Trade Representative’s website.
For the United States, Panama has long held a strategic military and commercial
importance, even as a small trading partner, and an FTA with Panama fits with
broader US trade policy.
The US-Panama free trade agreement, signed just before Christmas, is set to be debated by U.S. lawmakers before July. But US business organizations widely support the agreement.
