(Left to Right): Rafael Maldonado, chairman, Colombian-American Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta; Camilo de Bedout, consul general for Colombia in Atlanta; Charles Shapiro, U.S. Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs; and Sara Gonzalez, president and CEO, Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. photo by Mike Rast Jr.

Mr. Shapiro with a group of international affairs students at the Georgia Institute of Technology. photo by Mike Rast Jr.

(Left to Right): Jim Maddox, Atlanta City Council; Charles Shapiro, and Alexander Mejia, executive director, International Training Center for Government Authorities and Civil Society Leaders in Atlanta. photo courtesy of CIFAL Atlanta

Passage of three key pending free trade agreements by Congress would not only expand the economies of the United States and its foreign trading partners, but it would also serve to strengthen key allies in Latin America, said Charles Shapiro, an official in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, during a visit to Atlanta Oct. 5.

The agreements with Colombia, Panama and Peru have been signed by President Bush but require congressional approval before being enacted. 

According to Mr. Shapiro, the agreements with Peru and Panama will pass easily, but the Colombian deal faces special complications.

Free trade agreements not only facilitate commerce, but represent permanent mutual support between the nations involved, he said.

“The benefits of the agreements are on the political side; it is the United States of America helping our best allies in Latin America,” he told a group of approximately 30 Hispanic-American businesspeople, including Columbia's Consul General in Atlanta Camilo de Bedout, during a lunch hosted by the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Colombian American Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta.  “It is in our interest that Peru, Panama and Colombia prosper.”

Mr. Shapiro said that the biggest threat to Latin America is poverty, as 220 million Latin Americans live below the poverty line.  Many of these people are engaged in an “informal economy,” doing business in whatever way they can in order to subsist.

Free trade agreements with these three nations, Mr. Shapiro said, would attract American investment that would provide jobs.  “We want to see people move from the informal economy to the formal economy,” he said. 

Having a steady income would give people a stake in their government and discourage them from turning to politicians offering radical economic solutions.  “These are three democracies committed to private sector-led growth,” that the United States seeks to encourage.

At the same time, the deal would open these Latin American markets more widely to U.S. exports.  Export business is playing an increasingly prominent role in the American economy, as a weak U.S. dollar increases demand for American-made products abroad.

Georgia companies have extensive export businesses in each of the three nations with pending agreements.  In 2006, Georgia exported $126 million in goods to Colombia, $81 million to Panama and $64 million to Peru, according to information from the International Trade Administration in the Department of Commerce.

Mr. Shapiro acknowledged the possibility of American jobs being outsourced to other countries as a result of free trade but argued that the long-term benefits of passing the agreements will outweigh short-term setbacks.

Free trade agreements can be a tough sell for American politicians because “the people who get hurt by trade have names and addresses and vote,” Mr. Shapiro said.  “The people who are going to benefit are a faceless group; they’re my children and your children.”

He predicted that the agreement with Peru will pass without much controversy due to current low tariff rates on U.S. imports of 0.1 percent.  Panama’s economy is largely service-based and does not rely on exports, therefore he expects that agreement to pass as well.

Most of the opposition, according to Mr. Shapiro, will be focused on the Colombian agreement, despite tariff rates similar to those in Peru.  He said that congressmen will be hesitant to pass the agreement due to American concerns about outsourcing as well as a falsely negative perception of the country perpetuated by American television and movies.

“Colombia has changed more dramatically in the last 10 years than any country in the world,” he said, citing school construction and the laying down of arms by 32,000 former guerrilla fighters as signs of the country’s transformation.

Fielding questions from a student audience at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Sam Nunn School for International Affairs following the lunch, Mr. Shapiro said, “There is an extraordinary sense of optimism in Colombia,” regarding the future of the country.

Referring to the pending free trade agreement with the United States, Mr. Shapiro added, “It would be like a bucket of cold water not to pass it,” dampening that optimistic economic outlook as well as U.S.-Colombian relations.

Rafael Maldonado, global relationship manager at United Commercial Bank and chairman of the Colombian chamber in Atlanta, said that failure of the United States to pass the agreement would be insulting to Colombian-American businesspeople.

Mr. Maldonado later told GlobalAtlanta that he is of the opinion that passage of the agreement will help to generate employment in Colombia and to make the country more secure.

As part of his role leading a task force to promote the passage of the three agreements, Mr. Shapiro is organizing visits by United States officials to Colombia, so that they can see for themselves how the country has changed.

“People need to figure out what’s really going on in Colombia,” he said.

Prospects for further trade between the United States and Central and South America are on the rise.  The United States began enforcing a free trade agreement with Chile, South America’s most dynamic economy, according to Mr. Shapiro, in 2004. 

A referendum in Costa Rica on Oct. 7 ratified the Dominican-Republic Central American Free Trade Agreement by a slim majority of 52 percent of that country’s people, bolstering free trade by one more nation.

Mr. Shapiro is a native of Atlanta and a former ambassador for the United States to Venezuela.  During this most recent visit to his home city he was honored at a dinner hosted by the International Training Center for Government Authorities and Civil Society Leaders in Atlanta on Oct. 11 at the City Grill.  Guests included Atlanta city council member Jim Maddox and members of the local consular corps.