Obama: Free-trade pact with Colombia a ‘high standards’ agreement

President Obama on Saturday urged U.S. and Latin American business leaders to act on the “enormous opportunity” closer economic ties would bring and defended a free-trade agreement with Colombia as a “win-win” for both nations.

Obama, who is attending the 33-nation Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, addressed executives from the U.S. and Latin American countries.

{mosads}At the summit, Obama will meet with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to discuss a wide range of issues, including the free trade deal agreed to by the U.S. and Colombia in October 2011.

In his address, Obama defended the agreement between Colombia and the U.S., saying that it was “an example of a free trade agreement that benefits both sides.”

“It’s a win-win. It has high standards, it’s a high-standards agreement,” Obama said to applause.

“It’s not a race to the bottom, but rather it says each country is abiding by everything from strong rules around labor and the environment to intellectual property protection. And so I have confidence that as we implement this plan, what we’re going to see is extraordinary opportunities for both U.S. and Colombian businesses.”

There had been speculation that officials would announce during the summit that the trade deal is ready for implementation.

But before the deal can be implemented, U.S. officials will need to evaluate where Colombia stands on promises to improve worker rights and prevent violence against labor movement leaders. The free trade deal with Colombia has faced opposition from many of Obama’s labor supporters concerned about violence towards union members in the Latin American country.

The three-day summit presents the administration an opportunity to improve trade relations and economic ties with Latin America.

Business executives from companies including Wal-Mart, PepsiCo and Yahoo attended the president’s address, reports say.

The president also said the global economy had experienced “some very challenging times,” and cautioned that the days “when we could think of each of our economies in isolation, those days are long gone. What happens in Wall Street has an impact in Rio. What happens in Bogota has an impact in Beijing.”

Obama said the challenge facing leaders at the summit was to “make sure that that globalization and that integration is benefiting a broad base of people, that economic growth is sustainable and robust, and that it is also giving opportunity to a growing, wider circle of people, and giving businesses opportunities to thrive and create new products and new services and enjoy this global marketplace.”

Later, in his address, Obama joked that media coverage of summits often focused on “controversies” ignoring more recent progress in U.S.-Latin American relations.

“Sometimes those controversies date back to before I was born. And sometimes I feel as if in some of these discussions or at least the press reports we’re caught in a time warp, going back to the 1950s and gunboat diplomacy and Yanquis and the Cold War, and this and that and the other,” said the president.

“That’s not the world we live in today,” he added. 

“I can speak, I think, for the United States to say that we’ve never been more excited about the prospects of working as equal partners with our brothers and sisters in Latin America and the Caribbean, because that’s going to be the key to our success,” Obama concluded.

-Vicki Needham contributed