BOGOTΑ, Colombia
The pact was a rare victory in Latin America for the Bush administration, which in the last two years has had to redirect efforts away from fashioning a 34-country trade bloc to negotiating deals with individual countries. Big players like Brazil have balked at talks because of hurdles like American farm subsidies, while Venezuela's president, Hugo Chαvez, has led the charge against free trade on ideological grounds.
President Bush signed a pact with Central America last summer, and American negotiators concluded a trade deal with Peru in December. The United States is working on a pact with Ecuador, which is under pressure now that its two much larger neighbors have reached agreements. American officials would like to bundle the three countries at the moment beneficiaries of trade preferences that expire in December into one pact, though prospects for doing so and presenting the agreement for Congressional approval before the end of the year appear dim.
"It's a revealing sign that these deals keep going forward one by one absent major movement on a hemispheric basis," said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
The deal with Colombia is important because the country's economic output, which tops $100 billion, is bigger than that of any other country in the region that has a trade deal with the administration. Two-way trade between the countries was $14.3 billion last year with American exports to Colombia at $5.4 billion.
The United States, which has provided Colombia with nearly $5 billion to fight drugs and Marxist rebels since 2000, also has an interest in seeing President Αlvaro Uribe succeed.
However, Lori Wallach, director of Global Trade Watch, part of the advocacy group Public Citizen, said the deal battered generic drug makers in Colombia and important agricultural sectors like chicken, wheat and rice. It also permits American companies to bid on public services contracts, a delicate issue in Latin America, where there has been criticism of foreign conglomerates running services like water.
"It's a model that's very useful for a very narrow set of U.S. interests," Ms. Wallach said. Three members of Colombia's intellectual property rights negotiating team quit last year, citing American intransigence. Opponents of the deal have pledged to fight it as the American and Colombian Congresses begin debate.
While some Colombian producers, like growers of flowers, would benefit, several sectors worry that American agricultural products would swamp Colombia. That could displace farm workers, who might turn to illegal drug crops, like coca, the leaf used to make cocaine.
Rice growers, who are found in much of the country, say they expect to be put out of business eventually.
"Our worry is that with the disappearance of rice, there will be more cultivation of coca," said Rafael Hernandez, head of the rice growers association.
