Colombian ambassador maintains steady course

Carolina Barco has been immersed in America since birth.     Colombia’s ambassador, who has been a model of calm during a tumultuous year in Washington for her country, was born in Boston and earned a degree from Harvard. As ambassador, Barco is her country’s lead advocate for a controversial free trade agreement with the United States. 

The New England experience is one reason Barco believes she was appointed to serve as U.S. ambassador by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a top ally of President Bush.

{mosads}“My proximity and immersion in American culture would help me understand the culture here,” said the ambassador. “You like things to be upfront. You like things to be concrete and clear, not beating around the bush.”

The trade agreement has been caught in a fierce partisan battle between the Bush administration and House Democrats and faces an uncertain future, with a lame-duck vote looking increasingly unlikely.

The deal also got mixed up in presidential politics during the Democratic primary, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) demoting one of her senior aides due to his lobbying for the agreement.

Throughout the partisan fighting, Barco has played the conciliator instead of the political bomb-thrower.

“Any diplomat knows that you have to be very respectful of the politics of the country where you are stationed. That is inherent to one’s training,” said Barco, who is working to win the deal’s passage as soon as possible.

“What I have tried to do is to maintain a very clear message of explaining why Plan Colombia and the free trade agreement are good for Colombia and good for the U.S., without seeming partisan,” said Barco.

Barco seems suited for that role. Born in Boston, where her father was studying for his economic doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she went back to Colombia to live at the age of 2.

She returned to the United States, like her father, to go to school, earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology and economics at Wellesley College, and a master’s degree in city planning at Harvard.

“I sort of have a cyclical relationship with Massachusetts,” she joked.

Barco entered public service to follow in her father’s footsteps. Virgilio Barco Vargas was a model public servant for Colombia, having served as a senator, an ambassador, mayor of Bogota and president of the country. Barco and her siblings took inspiration from his career.

“We were very much marked by our father, by his philosophy and his ethics. This is something I love to do,” said Barco.

Barco served previously as minister of foreign affairs in Uribe’s administration.

That portfolio was much broader, and she had more resources. About 3,000 aides staffed Colombia’s foreign ministry worldwide, while 12 people bustle around the busy Washington embassy on Leroy Place. Staffers at the embassy on one day could be making photocopies, but could find themselves lobbying a member of Congress personally the next.

“This work here, you have to be prepared to serve the coffee as well as make the case upfront,” said Barco.

The ambassador’s ability to press Colombia’s case in Washington has won her friends on either side of the debate over the free trade agreement.

Thea Lee is the policy director for the AFL-CIO, a huge opponent of the trade agreement. It has argued that too many labor union leaders in Colombia are murder victims and that Colombia needs to do more to improve labor rights for its workers before the U.S. considers the trade deal.

But Lee described Barco as “very gracious” and “very diplomatic,” and credits her for reaching out to U.S. labor groups.

“She has taken the initiative to reach out to the labor unions to keep those lines of communication open,” Lee said.

The union official said the embassy is very responsive to requests for any information, including prosecutions regarding murders of Colombian trade unionists.

Barco’s allies in the U.S. business community consider her an asset.

Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, said Barco misses no opportunity to advocate for her country and the trade pact. He contrasts her with some ambassadors who will hang in the background of an event.

“When she is at a lunch or an event, she will press her case in that informal situation. Not all ambassadors will do that,” Reinsch said.

Barco has to keep a close eye on Congress — she even tracked the $700 billion bailout for Wall Street. She often calls lawmakers to check on Colombia’s initiatives. For example, she said she recently spoke with Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to ask about trade preferences her country receives. Those preferences were extended by Congress last week.

“Very often you have ambassadors who don’t understand the Hill. That’s not her, though,” said a senior House Republican aide. “She knows her way around. She is really immersed in it.”

Barco stresses that Colombia has always had a bipartisan relationship with the United States. She notes that President Bill Clinton signed off on Plan Colombia, the multibillion-dollar aid package to the country, and Colombia was one of the first countries visited by Peace Corps volunteers, a program created by President John F. Kennedy.

“Colombia has always maintained a clear dialogue with both parties,” said Barco. “It has always practiced that bipartisan approach.”

With the House now out of session until next year and the Senate only having three days in town after the election, it is unlikely the trade pact will pass before the next administration arrives in Washington.

Barco has already begun to focus on next year — specifically, on how best to lobby for the free trade agreement. The next president, whether it is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) or Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), will hear the same message from Barco.

“Colombia is a very good friend of the U.S. We have a very strong relationship, and we want to keep working together,” said the ambassador.