Peru urges Bush to push through FTA now
Peru Urges Bush to Push Through FTA Now
Lima, Oct 10 2006 (Prensa Latina) — While his neighbors in South America are in no hurry to ratify a free trade agreement with Washington, Peruvian President Alan Garcia plans to ask President George W. Bush to push for ratification of the beached Free Trade Treaty today.
Aware that there may be a change of viewpoint in the US Congress after the November elections, Peruvian President Alan Garcia says he will ask Bush to get it okayed this week.
The treaty was rapidly approved by the Peruvian Legislature in July, despite rejection by large sectors of the Peruvian population who consider it harmful to national agriculture and medicine production interests.
In a press statement Monday, Foreign Relations Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde did not discard postponement of the deadline for the Law of Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication as a result of talks in Washington.
The FM is pretty sure this will be positively resolved, while Garcia will propose the US President rethink the global anti-drug policy and hold a meeting between the US, Andean nations and Europe, the latter a zone that has become the new great market for drugs.
Garcia will meet with Bush today, at the invitation of the US president, and after the presidential meeting, with John Walter, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and then with Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and US Commercial representative Susan Schwab.
The Peruvian president’s agenda includes lunch at the International Economics Institute to show Peruvian investment potential and will conclude tonight with conversations with US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice, IMF director Rodrigo Rato and World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz.
