Sam Farr: “I thank the chairman for yielding. I rise in support of this agreement. Look, Colombia is a very important country to…”

“I thank the chairman for yielding. I rise in support of this agreement. Look, Colombia is a very important country to us. It has a lot of problems, but it has incredible potential. Colombia is a big country. It's the 20th-largest trade partner with the United States. It's our best ally in Latin America. It was the oldest democracy in Latin America, the first country to accept Peace Corps. It allowed an Air Force base to be built in Colombia. Other countries haven't allowed that. They fought alongside of us and are now fighting alongside of us in Afghanistan. They help us with Mexico drug cartels by teaching the Mexican national police and military how to handle those cartels. It's the first country to adopt a labor action plan. And let me speak to that. That labor action plan was adopted this year on April 11. You're going to hear a lot of complaints--well, it hasn't moved fast. It's only been in effect 6 months. It's already been able to organize the grocers into unions and other big industries into unions. It's the strongest labor plan ever adopted in the history of the United States trade agreements. And that's not my opinion; that's the opinion of the Secretary of Labor of this country. It's the opinion of the Congressional Research Office. And, frankly, a lot of people say, oh, this is another NAFTA. No. No. No. It's not NAFTA. NAFTA didn't have the ILO declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work and the follow-up provisions.…”