Too soon to blame FTA for drop in Colombia's export growth rate: US .
Too soon to blame FTA for drop in Colombia's export growth rate: US .
Wednesday, 21 November 2012 10:57 Zach Edling
Despite a significant drop in the growth rate of Colombia's export to the United States, it is too early to blame the recently signed free-trade agreement, said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk on Wednesday.
Kirk claimed earlier that the FTA had yielded "positive results" for both Colombia and the United States. Colombian goverment statistics, however, suggest that results were better before the free-trade agreement.
In the first nine months of 2010, prior to implementing the agreement, Colombia's exports to the United States grew nearly 34%. In the same period in 2011, they grew 29.3%. The free-trade agreement between the two countries was signed in May and in the first nine months of 2012 exports grew 6.7%.
~snip~
The U.S./Colombia free-trade agreement was originally signed back in 2006. The implementation was delayed by the United States Congress allegedly because of Colombia's history of violence against labor unions.
More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/economy/27118-too-soon-to-blame-fta-for-drop-in-export-growth-us.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Colombia export increase 2010: 34%
Colombia export increase 2011: 29.3%
Colombia export increase 2012: 6.7% (with U.S. FTA)
The headline is not strange at all. It shows a steep dive in Colombian exports to the U.S. with the "free trade for the rich" agreement that was implemented in May 2012.
Any economist--or reasonable person--looking at these figures would say that, despite the slight increase in 2012, SOMETHING is killing Colombian exports to the U.S. What's different? The FTA was implemented!
I doubt that these figures include cocaine, though. Throw in the trillion dollar flow of cocaine and other illicit drugs to the U.S. and the BILLIONS of U.S. tax dollars infused into the Colombian military for the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs," and you might say Colombia comes out on top, in a manner of speaking. Or some Colombians come out on top. ("Free trade for the biggest drug lords, for the rightwing politicians colluding with the big drug lords and for fascists/militarists who get free billions from U.S. taxpayers by pretending to stop the drug trade while profiting from the drug trade on the side."
Now wonder Big Pharma/Big Ag wants part of that action.
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However, I will say that the article is not very informative. The headline is justified by the numbers. But the correlation between the steep decline in legal Colombian exports to the U.S. and the FTA is not established. Also, such agreements can be quite complicated, involving numerous products, manufacturers, business pressure groups, investors and all sorts of variables (such as transportation), and maybe this one has slowed Colombian exports only temporarily while the details are worked out.
As for the illegal trade, it is only a matter of time now before Big Pharma/Big Ag takes it legit, and that will not only dramatically boost the export numbers (because cocaine, MJ, etc., will be included)--especially with the FBI destroying the U.S. indigenous industry prior to legalization--but it will also free up a lot of very depressive military dollars that might be used to actually produce things. Some military dollars will still be needed to keep stomping on the labor unions and other advocates of the poor, who are such inconvenient "players" in "free trade for the rich," but, all in all, legalization will likely be a stimulus in Colombia, even if people here have to live with GMO-ized marijuana.