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Ambassador pushing for U.S./Colombia FTA
Colombia’s Ambassador to the White House, Gabriel Silva, is meeting with farmer leaders, labor leaders and local governments in several U.S. states to push for ratification of the pending free trade agreement. Silva, a farmer himself, tells Brownfield he relates to U.S. farmers’ frustrations, “The delay in the FTA, in having it approved, is clearly destroying jobs in America and affecting, most of all, American farmers.”
U.S. wheat growers are among those very concerned with the recent implementation of Colombia’s FTA with Canada – not to mention the FTAs it has with other South American countries and the EU, “For U.S. wheat exporters,” Silva says, “The absence of an FTA with Colombia would cost them an initial 25-Million-dollars in tariffs. The average tariff that the U.S. farmer is going to pay exporting to Colombia is around 15% while the competitors of the U.S. won’t pay anything.”
Silva says the 46 percent market share US farmers had in 2008 has dwindled to less than half of that – so urgency is needed to pass the US/Colombia FTA in September before it gets bogged down in an election year, “Colombian businessmen prefer to deal with American farmers. They have worked with them for many decades. Every day that goes by is a day in which the U.S. loses its competitive edge in the Colombian market.”
Silva says there is time for US farmers to recover market share IF Congress acts quickly.
As for human rights concerns, Silva says Colombia is moving beyond its violent past, “We cannot hide or forget about this – that Colombia had a violent past. Organized crime and terrorism affected Colombia for many decades. But the country has changed profoundly in the last decade and a half.”
The Ambassador says Colombia’s President Santos and President Obama have reached agreements to help protect labor leaders in Colombia.
As for small farmers, Silva says, “Certainly, President Santos put in place a program aimed at the smaller farmers to provide them with support for technological change and to protect them in this time of globalization and that program is very well accepted by our farmers.”
He says the FTA will help Colombian farmers, too, “There is no real head-to-head clash between the American and the Colombian farmers. Actually, the FTA will provide better access for Colombian farmers, small farmers that produce specialized foods, specialized cut flowers, coffee – the things the U.S. needs and wants but are not competing with the U.S. or that the U.S. farmers compete with Colombia,” says Silva.
Silva says it’s important for everyone to realize that the U.S./Colombia free trade agreement will grow U.S. jobs, “We also are one of the largest purchasers of Caterpillar products in the region – one of the largest in the world – because we are growing very fast in mining and infrastructure. So, we’ll create jobs not only in the ag sector but in many other areas of the U.S.”
AUDIO: Interview with Gabriel Silva (13:00 mp3)
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