United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DIAZ-BALART. I want to thank Chairman Camp not only for that great explanation that he just gave, but for bringing this bill to the floor.

Look, I keep hearing a lot about the horrors of Colombia. A couple of facts:

Because of the Andean trade pact preferential act, Colombian goods that come to the United States already basically come almost tariff-free. This would even it out so our products, created by American labor here, can go to Colombia with the same preferential treatment, fact number one.

And fact number two, the chairman just talked about this. I keep hearing about this Colombia, which is really, frankly, a caricature, an offensive caricature of what Colombia really is, as if we can just throw those things out there pretending that it doesn't mean anything. Colombia is a democratic ally, Mr. Speaker. They have taken incredible steps to move forward to lower violence, to lower crime, to lower narcotrafficking. They're even now training police forces across the world, including Mexico, in their fight against narcoterrorism.

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dreier). The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. CAMP. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, it's an offensive caricature of Colombia, a democratic ally, a place that is fighting for democracy and for freedom and for due process and the rule of law. We should recognize it, commend them, thank them for being such an ally, for being a democracy.

Mr. Speaker, isn't it ironic that a lot of the people that want to do business with Castro's Cuba, where labor unions aren't even permitted, complain about Colombia because they are a democracy, because they're an ally, because they're doing the right thing. Let's pass this commonsense thing.

Let's also thank the President for finally doing what he said he was going to do a long time ago when he said that it was time to pass this.

It's better late than never, Mr. President, but thank you for finally sending it.

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