The Peru-United States Free Trade Agreement (officially the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA); Spanish Acuerdo de Promocion Comercial Peru-Estados Unidos) is a bilateral commercial treaty, whose objectives are eliminating obstacles to trade, consolidating access to goods and services and favoring private investment in and between both nations. Apart from commercial issues, it incorporates economic, insitutional, intellectual-property, labor and environmental policies, among others.

The agreement was signed on 12 April 2006. The Peruvian Congress ratified it on 28 June 2006, but the U.S. Congress still needs to ratify it for it to come into force.

Negotiations and signing

Negotiations for an Andean free trade agreement between the United States and Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru were announced in November 2003; negotiations started without Bolivia in May 2004. Eventually, due to the slow progress, each of the three remaining Andean countries pursued a bilateral agreement with the United States. Only Peru and Colombia have reached deals so far.

After a total of thirteen rounds of negotiations, the agreement between Peru and the U.S. was concluded on 7 December 2005. Peru's Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism Alfredo Ferrero Diez Canseco and U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman signed the deal on 12 April 2006 in Washington, D.C., in the presence of Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo.

Ratification

The Congress of Peru debated the agreement for six hours during the night of 27 June and ratified it in the early hours of the next day. The vote was 79-14, with 7 abstentions.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Finance held a hearing on the implementation of the agreement on 29 June 2006 video, while the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means held one on 12 July. Each also held a "mock markup", an informal vote before its submission, with votes of 12-7 and 23-13 in favor of the agreement, respectively, with most opposition coming from Democrats. The debate and vote in the House of Representatives was expected to take place after its August recess, despite calls from the Peruvian government for the ratification before the end of Toledo's administration on 28 July.

Antecedents

The PTPA has an antecedent in the Andean Trade Preference and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA), which replaced the expired Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA). ATPDEA was enacted by U.S. President George W. Bush on 6 August 2002, granting Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru preferential tariff treatment for eligible products. It is set to expire on 31 December 2006. It has been renewed again for 6 months.

Potential benefits

Peru is interested in the agreement in order to:

• consolidate and extend the trade preferences under ATPDEA
• attract foreign investment
• generate employment
• enhance the country's competitivity within the region
• increase the workers' income
• curb poverty levels.
• create and export sugar cane ethanol

The United States looks to this agreement as a way to:

• improve access to goods and services
• strengthen its investments
• promote security and democracy
• fight against drug trafficking.

Sensitive topics

• Intellectual property
  • Patent protection
  • Recognition of autochthonous and traditional knowledge
• Government spending
  • No discrimination against foreign investors
• Agriculture
  • Elimination of export subsidies
  • Schedule for tariff reduction
  • Application of farming safeguard measures
  • Technical cooperation and assistance programs
• Environment
  • Effective enforcement of environmental legislation
  • Sovereignty to adopt and modify environmental legislation
  • Mechanisms for environmental cooperation
• Labor
  • Rigorous enforcement of national legislation
  • Fundamental International Labor Organization treaties
  • Sovereignty to modify legislation
  • Mechanisms for cooperation
• Animals
  • Habitat Loss Due to Expansion of Mining Development
  • Increased U.S. pork and poultry exports funding factory farming
  • Legislation to protect animals could be seen as trade barrier

Criticism

The agreement has suffered consistent criticism. Some point out that the negotiation does not recognize the asymmetry between the economies and the development levels of the two countries. In Peru, the treaty was championed by President Toledo, and supported to different extents by President-elect Alan Garcia and candidates Lourdes Flores and Valentin Paniagua. The 2006 election's runner-up Ollanta Humala has been its most vocal critic. Humala's Union for Peru won 45 of 120 seats in Congress, the largest share by a single party, prompting the debate and ratification of the agreement before the new legislature was sworn in. Some Congressmen-elect interrupted the debate after forcibly entering Congress, in an attempt to stop the agreement ratification.

Critics of the Peru TPA worry that the pact will worsen Peru's problems with child labor and weak labor rights, and expose the country's subsistence farmers to disruptive competition with subsidized U.S. crops. Additionally, critics contend that Dubai Ports World will be able to use its Peruvian subsidiary to obtain rights to operate U.S. ports. Even animal rights groups have opposed this legislation due to the possibility of spreading factory farming practices through Latin America, increasing U.S. pork and poultry exports, and mining development that causes deforestation and habitat loss for animals.

See also

• Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement

External links

• Final Text of the United States - Peru Trade Promotion Agreement
• Pagina del Tratado de Libre Comercio Peruvian Government's site on agreement
• U.S. International Trade Commission Report on Peru TPA
• Congressional Research Service Report on Andean Free Trade Agreement, including Peru TPA
• Senate Finance Committee Hearing on Peru TPA
• House Ways and Means Committee Hearing on Peru TPA
• House Ways and Means Committee Report on Peru TPA and AFTA
• Center for Economic and Policy Research Report on Peru's Economy
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Report on Peru TPA / AFTA
• Projections of Increases in Child Labor and Rural Poverty with US-Peru TPA by Young Lives, a project of the U.K. government and Save the Children

In support of Peru TPA

• U.S. Trade Representative's Site on Peru TPA
• Emergency Committee for American Trade Site on Peru TPA
• Business Roundtable Statement on Peru TPA
• Chamber of Commerce Statement on Peru TPA
• Heritage Foundation Memo on Peru TPA
• National Pork Producers Council backgrounder on Peru TPA

Opposed to Peru TPA

• Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) Speech on Peru TPA
• League of United Latin American Citizens' Statement on Peru TPA
• Oxfam America's Site on the Peru TPA and other trade pacts
• Global Trade Watch Site on Peru TPA/AFTA
• Citizen's Trade Campaign Site on Peru TPA/AFTA
• AFL-CIO Site on the Peru TPA and other trade pacts
• El Peru frente al TLC (TLC Asi NO) Peruvian opposition site
• Free Trade Kills Animals
• Foreign-relations-of-Peru
• Economy-of-Peru

Other pages about Economy of Peru

-Agricultural history of Peru -Bolsa de Valores de Lima -Central Reserve Bank of Peru -Economy of Peru -International rankings of Peru -Peru-United States Free Trade Agreement -Peruvian inti -Peruvian nuevo sol -Peruvian peseta -Peruvian real -Peruvian sol

Other pages about Foreign relations of Peru

-Chilean-Peruvian Maritime Dispute of 2006 -Chilean-Peruvian maritime dispute of 2006-2007 -Foreign relations of Peru -Leticia dispute -Peru-United States Free Trade Agreement -Peruvian diplomatic missions -United States Ambassador to Peru

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Peru-United_States_Free_Trade_Agreement