Labor Activists Say U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Will Be Signed in Blood if Approved

Coincidentally, earlier that day, the vice president of Colombia, Francisco Santos, gave a presentation to a group of San Antonio business leaders that had come together under the banner of “free trade.”

According to an article in the San Antonio Express-News about the free trade event, Santos said: “We would not understand if the [U.S.] government would approve free trade agreements with Peru and Panama but not Colombia. It would be an insult to Colombia, which has been an ally, to be treated that way.”

The Bush Administration is currently undertaking an all-out push to get Congress to approve the FTA with Colombia.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe also was in the U.S. in May of this year as part of a three-day lobbying tour and again in late September as part of a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly