US, Colombia to sign free trade agreement on Nov 22
The Associated Press | November 10, 2006
U.S., Colombia to sign free trade agreement on Nov. 22
WASHINGTON: A free trade agreement between the United States and Colombia will be signed on Nov. 22, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday.
Snow said President George W. Bush affirmed his support for the agreement in a telephone call Friday to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
He said the two presidents discussed both the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement and extension of the Andean Trade Preference Act. in force since 1991 and set to expire Dec. 31, that act lowered trade barriers to farmers in the Andes to entice them to grow other crops than coca, the basis of cocaine.
Uribe says the free trade agreement will increase Colombia’s exports by 10 percent, lure foreign investment and create 380,000 new jobs. The pact has brought opposition from some farmers who fear wholesale duty-free agricultural imports will drive them out of business or force them back to growing coca or other illegal crops to survive.
The free trade deal will be the United States’ largest in the Western Hemisphere since the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in 1994.
After almost two years’ negotiations, the agreement was concluded in February.
Uribe will be in Washington on Nov. 20-21, but it was uncertain whether he would participate in the signing ceremony on Nov. 22.
