Fact Checking David Sirota on Colombia

by John Murphy

David Sirota takes some serious liberties with the facts in his recent post on the trade agreement with Colombia.

Sirota says:  "…polls show this ‘free trade zone’ is unpopular in almost every country it encompasses."

This is nonsense.  I was just in Lima, Peru, where polls show that the recently approved U.S.-Peru trade agreement is viewed positively by three-quarters of Peruvians.  Over the past four years, democratically-elected legislatures in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Peru all approved trade agreements with the United States with more than 85% of legislators voting in favor.

Sirota says the Colombian government has a "known association with paramilitary gangs."

It does indeed — it is associated with them as the entity that has shut them all down.  Over the past five years, the Uribe Administration has demobilized more than 40,000 paramilitary fighters.  When I visited Medellin, Colombia, last December, I asked one of these demobilized fighters, a 22-year old now studying to be a car mechanic, if other paramilitaries would appreciate the outstanding programs for reintegration into society from which he’s benefiting.  "What other paramilitaries?" he asked.  "There are none left.  We are all here, back in society."  With a civilian police presence restored across the country, half the left-wing FARC guerrillas have deserted.  Peace has broken out, with violent crime plummeting over the past five years.

Sirota says the trade agreement with Colombia will "destroy our own economy here at ome [sic]." 

Sirota is one of the many people who don’t know that we already have free trade with Colombia, but it’s one-way free trade, coming in.  Fully 92% of imports from Colombia enter the U.S. market duty free.  By contrast, Colombia imposes tariffs on imports of U.S. manufactured goods of 14%, and often twice that for agricultural products.  For American workers and farmers, that’s just not fair.  It’s like starting a basketball game down a dozen points from the tip off.  The pending trade agreement would put U.S. trade relations with Colombia on a fairer, mutually beneficial footing by eliminating Colombia’s tariffs — most immediately.  That means new sales, new exports, and new jobs.  So how would that destroy our economy?

//Update:  An answer to the spin.