Free Trade

February 13, 2008

It seems that everyonein this town is jockeying for political advantage. It would be niceif the U.S. Congress would just do something for the good of all ourcitizens. Last year, the Congress passed the Peru Trade PromotionAgreement. That was good -opening up a $330 million market for u.S.agriculture. But now, we have 3 more similar agreements pending --Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.

Sometimes, we forgethow important trade is to our farmers and ranchers. We had a record$82 billion in Ag exports last year. Exports account for 25% of ourcash receipts and support 900,000 jobs on and off the farm. If we'regoing to keep spending so much money on oil, we need to sellsomething. With 44 million citizens, Colombia is a much bigger marketthan Peru. We arc selling them $1 billion worth of product now. Thenew agreement will make half of our exports duty-free immediately andthe rest duty-free phased in over 15 years. It's a "win, win"for us.

The free trade criticsin Congress argue that Colombia has tolerated violence against unionleaders. The AFL-CIO has made defeat of the agreement a top priority.It would be irresponsible for Congress to fail to pass the agreementswith Colombia and Panama. It's that simple.

The agreement withSouth Korea has the most potential of the entire group. That marketis the 6th largest in the world for our farmers and ranchers and canbe a lot bigger.

For South Korea, thereis one very important caveat. Our support for that agreement iscontingent upon the South Korean government's commitment to fullyopen their market to our beef.

Final point -- there isa huge foreign policy advantage to concluding these agreementsespecially in South America. It is a way of supporting marketdemocracy. We have been under attack by Venezuelan Hugo Chavez andthe last thing he wants to see is strong trade relations between theU.S. and other South American countries.

Keep in mind that only5% of the world's population lives within our borders, and ViC can'teat anymore. Mueh of our economic growth opportunity lies abroad.

Until next yveek, I amJohn Block from Washington.