[CTC] Jeb Bush: Obama Caved on Trade

Sun Apr 15 07:53:11 PDT 2012

Inside U.S. Trade - 04/13/2012
Colombia Seeking FTA Implementation Date From Obama At Summit
Posted: April 12, 2012
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos this week clearly signaled that he is seeking a commitment from President Obama on a specific date when the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement will enter into force, and that he hopes to receive such a date from Obama when the two leaders meet bilaterally on April 15 in Colombia, after the Summit of the Americas.
In an April 11 Spanish-language statement on the presidential website, Santos said Colombia is doing "everything possible" to complete all the steps necessary to comply with its FTA obligations in order to enable the two presidents to make an announcement on entry into force or at least "give a definitive date" for when that will happen.
According to informed sources, May 15 is being put forth as one possible date when the FTA could take effect. One source stressed that there is still no agreement on a date, but was confident that the two sides would implement the FTA within the next two months.
If both governments ultimately decided to implement the FTA sometime within the next two months, that would mean that they agree to move forward before actually attaining formal approval from Colombia's Constitutional Court of three international treaties that Colombia is required to "ratify or accede to" under the FTA's intellectual property rights (IPR) chapter.
Those court reviews concern three treaties on intellectual property rights. The Colombian Congress has already ratified them, but the Constitutional Court is not expected to sign off on them until the second half of this year. Colombia will not be able to formally become a party to the treaties until the court finishes its review and declares them consistent with Colombian law, sources have said.
While the Santos administration has no control over the timing of the court review, it has been moving feverishly to implement its remaining FTA obligations before Obama's trip. As a result, Colombia is expected to complete all the required steps for FTA implementation -- besides completing the court review -- by April 13, sources said.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative generally seeks to ensure that an FTA partner has taken all necessary steps to implement an FTA before announcing that the FTA will take effect. However, USTR has deviated from that general practice in the past, including on issues related to IPR.
In the context of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), for instance, the U.S. allowed Costa Rica to implement the trade deal even though it had not passed all IPR-related laws necessary to uphold its FTA obligations. However, USTR also put in place safeguard measures to help ensure that Costa Rica ultimately fulfilled its obligations.
Specifically, the U.S. and Costa Rica negotiated an understanding under which the U.S. could impose trade sanctions on Costa Rican exports if Costa Rica did not implement the IPR changes within a set period of time (Inside U.S. Trade, May 28, 2010). It is unclear if a similar deal could be used in the case of the Colombia FTA.
Regardless of whether Obama and Santos announce a specific date for FTA implementation after the summit, observers believe that Obama will at least make some sort of announcement on the FTA during his trip.
The AFL-CIO, which opposes the Colombia FTA, has been warning its affiliates that Obama is poised to announce during his trip that Colombia has complied with the U.S.-Colombia action plan on labor rights, thereby giving the "green light" for the FTA to enter into effect sometime later this year, sources said.
But one labor source stressed that the administration has not yet definitively notified the U.S. labor movement that Obama will make such an announcement while in Colombia. This is important because Obama has said he will not allow the Colombia FTA to enter into force until Colombia has fulfilled "key provisions" of the action plan.
Still, observers had doubts on whether Obama would even announce that Colombia has met the requirements outlined under the labor action plan.
One FTA supporter, for instance, argued that House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI), who is also traveling to Colombia for the summit, will likely press Obama to avoid certifying that Colombia has met the key provisions of the labor action plan, or announcing that the deal is ready to enter into force.
This source said Levin, who voted against the Colombia trade deal last October, may be especially sensitive to this issue because, in the view of Levin and other House Democrats, the George W. Bush administration certified that the U.S.-Peru FTA was ready to take effect before Peru had complied with its labor obligations (Inside U.S. Trade, Jan. 23, 2009).
A White House official this week declined to answer directly when asked whether Obama would make a determination on whether Colombia has met the key provisions of the labor action plan or, more generally, on whether it has met all of its FTA obligations.
In an April 12 conference call, Dan Restrepo, special assistant to the president and senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, said that "bringing the agreement into force is something that we certainly want to do as soon as possible." But he stressed that this has to be consistent with the commitments Obama made when sending the FTA to Congress, which include implementation of the labor action plan.
Restrepo said the Obama administration will continue to work with the Colombian government on implementing the action plan, and also to review at the technical level all the steps Colombia has taken to comply with the FTA.
"We're very much focused at a technical level and have been supporting those processes; folks again at USTR, [the Department of Labor] and elsewhere in government [are] looking at the steps that the Colombians have taken," Restrepo said. "And that process continues."
Both USTR Ron Kirk, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis are accompanying President Obama on his trip to the summit, which is taking place April 14-15 in Cartagena, Colombia.
Restrepo said the admininstration's "continued commitment to labor rights in Colombia" will be part of the agenda during Obama's bilateral meeting with Santos, and he praised several steps the Colombian government has already taken in accordance with the action plan to improve labor rights in Colombia.
According to Restrepo, those include putting in place a series of laws and executive decrees related to labor rights, as well as imposing a million-dollar fine on a company in the palm sector that was violating new rules on cooperatives. Cooperatives are forms of subcontracting that Colombian employers have used to skirt labor laws by avoiding a direct employment relationship with their workers.
Colombia's Congress on April 10 approved a bill of implementing measures for the FTA along with the two remaining IPR treaties that Colombia must ratify before the trade deal enters into force (Inside U.S. Trade, April 6). In addition, the Santos administration expects to issue by the end of the week a series of executive orders and decrees related to safeguards, tariff reductions and tariff-rate quotas, among other FTA obligations, the commerce ministry said in an April 11 Spanish-language statement.
Inside U.S. Trade - 04/13/2012

Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli
Senior Associate for Colombia and the Andes
Washington Office on Latin America
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The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) is a US human rights organization that promotes democracy and socioeconomic justice in Latin America and the Caribbean through analysis and foreign policy proposals informed by strong partnerships with civil society counterparts in the region. Visit WOLA's website to sign up<http://www.wola.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=218&Itemid=37> for more information or donate now<http://www.wola.org/donatenow> to help WOLA carry out its work.

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