President Bush promotes the Columbia FTA during a speech at the White House.

The Georgia Department of Economic Development is to host a meeting to educate Savannah businesspeople on economic opportunities in Colombia April 16, six days after President Bush’s attempt to fast-track a free trade agreement with the South American nation was defeated in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Bush sent a letter to Congress April 7 imposing a 90-day timetable to vote on the trade deal, and the House voted 224-195 to remove the time constraint April 10.

The Georgia department, the U.S. Department of Commerce and TradeRoots, an initiative of the Washington-based U.S. Chamber of Commerce to promote trade, are hosting Eduardo Muñoz, Colombia’s vice minister for foreign trade, at the event.

Todd Gerken, director of the Commerce Department’s Export Assistance Center in Savannah, said that TradeRoots has been hosting a number of events regarding Colombia across the country and that the upcoming event will focus on the business climate there.

“This forum is just to give people the reality of access to the market, what kinds of products are in demand, what current exporters are doing and what their experiences are,” he said.

Mr. Gerken added that passing the agreement would benefit the U.S. because Colombian imports already enter the U.S. duty-free under the Andean Trade Preference Act, while American products entering Colombia face tariffs.

Other supporters, including Mr. Bush, say that the pact will encourage further progress toward stability and growth in Colombia, strengthen an ally and provide greater security for both countries. 

In his remarks while signing the letter to Congress, Mr. Bush praised Colombian President Alvaro Uribe for fighting Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, rebels.  He also said President Uribe provides a balance to the influence of anti-American Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

“(Mr. Uribe) has been a strong and capable partner in fighting drugs and crime and terror,” Mr. Bush said.  “The Colombian government reports that since 2002, kidnappings, terrorist attacks, and murders are all down substantially, as is violence against union members.”

Opponents of the deal say that it does not provide enough protections for Colombian workers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, released a statement April 9 saying that concerns about the deal had not been adequately addressed and that she had urged Mr. Bush not to send the letter.  She also said that she would introduce the vote to block the timetable measure the next day.

Mr. Bush’s administration and organizations supportive of trade such as TradeRoots have been promoting the agreement since it was signed in November 2006, in the hope it will pass before election of a new president.

In that time, Georgia has hosted Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue, State Department official Charles Shapiro and numerous businesspeople promoting the agreement.

The State Department has been taking Congressional delegations to Colombia to assess the progress the country has made. 

Georgia Rep. David Scott, a Democrat representing the west and south sides of the Atlanta metro area and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, visited Colombia in January as a member of one such delegation.

Michael Andel, Mr. Scott’s chief of staff, told GlobalAtlanta after the trip that “the congressman was pleasantly surprised by the progress being made, but there is still a long way to go, and nothing he saw there would lead him to a position of strong support for an FTA.”

The U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, the most recent free trade deal to come before Congress, passed with strong bipartisan support and Mr. Bush said that he hopes the agreement with Colombia will as well.

Ms. Pelosi said that the president’s letter was an attempt to cut negotiations on the deal short and that the agreement could still be voted on later this year.