Colombia Optimistic On Obama

With the prospects of a lame-duck passage pretty dim for the controversial Colombian free trade agreement, the Colombian government reached out to the upper echelons of the incoming Obama administration Wednesday.

President-elect Barack Obama returned a call from Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Wednesday and during the conversation, Uribe “expressed his interest in sharing information as to how Colombia is going,” said Colombian Ambassador Carolina Barco over coffee at her Dupont residence Thursday morning.

The Colombians have since delivered to incoming White House Chief of Staff Rham Emanuel a document containing their most up-to-date information on the government’s actions to advance labor rights and protections and curtail violence and impunity, as well as statistics showing the success of those efforts.

It’s the same data Barco and her team shared with members of Congress during this week’s lame-duck session.

“We think that it’s important that we all have the same information and that we can carry on our conversations and try to work toward a free trade agreement as soon as possible, knowing the progress” Colombia has made, she said. “It has been very rapid and many times perception takes awhile to catch up with reality.”

Obama made some pretty tough comments on trade during the campaign, but Barco says its important to look at comments Obama made during the final presidential debate, explaining that he voted for the Peru free trade agreement because the pact included enhanced labor and environmental protections.

The Colombia pact includes the exact same provisions, Barco noted.

“So I think that the doors are not closed, I think that what we need to do is to keep on working together,” and see exactly how both countries can move the pact forward, she said.
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