Chuck Grassley: “Today, President Bush submitted the Colombia Trade Promotion Trade Agreement Implementing Act to Congress. This bill, as…”

“Today, President Bush submitted the Colombia Trade Promotion Trade Agreement Implementing Act to Congress. This bill, as the title implies, would implement our pending trade agreement with Colombia, which the administration and Colombia signed in November 2006. This is an important agreement that deserves our support. Some of the economic reasons for supporting this trade agreement are that the economic rationale is obvious. In my view, the economic rationale is undeniable. That is because Colombia is a beneficiary of two of our unilateral trade preference programs: The Andean Trade Preference Act, and the Generalized System of Preferences. Now, all this means is Colombia already gets duty-free access to U.S. markets for the vast majority of its goods. Now, meanwhile, less than 3 percent of our exports to Colombia, and not a single U.S. agricultural export, receives duty-free treatment from Colombia. Our exporters face Colombian tariffs as high as 35 percent for nonagricultural goods and even much higher tariffs for agricultural goods. The Colombian trade agreement would thus eliminate this disparity or, as we like to say so often, level the playing field for American exporters, thus giving American workers the same access to Colombian markets that their workers get to the U.S. markets; in other words, being fair, leveling the playing field.”