ESSAY:

Trade Agreement between the Republic of Colombia and the United States
of America

The Trade Agreement between the Republic of Colombia and the United States
of America, its attached letters and understandings were signed in Washington
on November 22, 2006.

The process of incorporation into Colombian domestic legislation was provided

through the approval of Law 1143 2007 by the Colombian Congress, and was
complemented by Judgment C-750/08 of the Constitutional Court by which the
Agreement and the aforementioned law were found to be consistent to the
constitutional order of the country. With the same luck, the “Modifying Protocol”
of the Agreement, signed in Washington on June 28, 2007, and approved by
Law 1166 of 2007, whose affordability was declared in Sentence C-751/08, ran
with the same luck.

On October 12, 2011, the United States Congress approved the Agreement, a
fact that was followed by the sanction of the approving law by President Obama
on October 21, 2011. This is how the implementation phase began. regulations
of the Agreement in Colombia, which was intended to verify that adjustments
are carried out to ensure that the Agreement is compatible with our legal
system.

Once this stage has been completed, the exchange of notes is made between
the governments of Colombia and the United States, which was carried out at
the last VI Summit of the Americas in Cartagena de Indias, in which the date of
entry into force of the TLC was established.

The process for signing the agreement ends with the publication of Decree 993
of May 15, 2012, through which the "Trade Promotion Agreement between the
Republic of Colombia and the United States of America" is promulgated, its
"Attached Letters "and its" Understandings ", the Proclamation is a necessary
requirement for the entry into force of the Treaty.

The Free Trade Agreement is the necessary complement to other government

policies aimed at achieving higher rates of economic growth. Studies indicate
that the growth of the economy increased by approximately 4.2% as a result of
the signing of the TLC between Colombia and the United States of America,
and the employment rate had an average growth of 380 thousand jobs in the
first 5 years from your signature.
In addition to this, the TLC makes the country more attractive for foreign
investment, advantages that national trade should take advantage of.

At the time of the signing of the TLC between Colombia and the United States,
the country had to make a large investment in modernizing the technology used
to meet the demands and commitments that would be acquired, eliminating
bureaucratic procedures, attention times in important aspects such as customs
procedures, logistics and electronic commerce.

Currently there is an entity in charge of promoting and promoting exports

between countries called Proexport, which provides free workshops and
seminars to entrepreneurs and all the necessary tools to minimize risks in
internationalization and optimize the company's capabilities.

One of the advantages for Colombia with the signing of this TLC was to be able
to eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade in goods and services. The
elimination of these barriers gives preferential access to other countries, since
the products of others continue to face such barriers in the market of the United
States and its strategic partners.

Figures provided by the Colombian American Chamber of Commerce

(AmCham) show that this treaty has facilitated that “the number of exporting
companies increase by 16%, that we have 294 new products exported to the
United States and that enter that country, with zero tariffs, 10,500 tariff items
compared to 5,520 that had access with the Andean Tariff Preferences and
Drug Eradication Law (Atpdea)”.

Colombia is the first agricultural trading partner of the United States in South
America and the third most important agricultural market in the Western
Hemisphere. Currently, the national market has sanitary eligibility for 99
agricultural products, among which are Hass avocado, cape gooseberry, cocoa
and Tahiti lemon, as well as access to 52 lines of processed products, among
which are include tilapia, trout and confectionery, among others.

In more than eight years of validity of the Trade Agreement with the United
States, exports of non-mining energy goods have gained participation in total
sales to that market, as they went from representing 15.6% in 2012, to 37, 2%
last year 2019, and 43.6% in the first quarter of 2020.

Although this is partly due to the lower dynamics of energy mining products,
agricultural, agro-industrial and industrial products have increased their sales
and have diversified.
The main agricultural export product to that destination is flowers, followed by
coffee, bananas, fish fillets, plants, fresh fish, even species such as ginger,
saffron, turmeric and thyme.

The positive impact of the TLC on tourism was the notable increase in tourists
from the United States after the signing of the TLC in 2012, this country being
one of the 3 countries that emits the most travelers to Colombia in recent years.
This flow of travelers also translates into a greater presence of US airlines in
Colombia, which is today the country with the most airline representations in
Colombia, with five: United Airlines, Delta Airlines, Spirit Airlines, JetBlue
Airways and American Airlines.

But for some specialists, according to the figures, not everything is good for
Colombia with the signing of the TLC, since it has lost 11,192 million dollars in
exports to the United States (around 37 billion pesos), which means a reduction
in sales Colombian companies of 51.3% comparing 2018 with 2012. In addition,
they continue to be little diversified.

As seen in the previous paragraph, the TLC with the United States, although it
has brought advantages to some sectors of the economy, has not provided
Colombia with the economic benefits that were expected, on the contrary, it has
meant a setback in trade matters, which which allows us to infer that, if
companies in Colombia do not improve in productivity and efficiency, they will
not be in a position to continue competing in international markets. In other
words, if competitiveness is not achieved in international markets, good results
will not be achieved in foreign trade.
 BIBLIOGRAFÍA – CIBERGRAFÍA

 http://www.tlc.gov.co/acuerdos/vigente/acuerdo-de-promocion-comercial-
estados-unidos

 https://unperiodico.unal.edu.co/pages/detail/siete-anos-despues-
colombia-sigue-en-desventaja-en-el-tlc-con-estados-unidos/

 http://www.tlc.gov.co/acuerdos/vigente/acuerdo-de-promocion-comercial-
estados-unidos/contenido/beneficios-del-tlc-entre-colombia-y-ee-uu

 https://www.mincit.gov.co/prensa/noticias/comercio/octavo-aniversario-
del-tlc-entre-colombia-y-ee-uu