ISDS Case Map
US
Administration officials said Tuesday that a free trade agreement with Panama is ready for congressional consideration and that they hoped it will be part of a larger trade agenda that also includes completion of long-pending free trade treaties with South Korea and Colombia.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke will lead a bipartisan congressional delegation to Seoul next week to build support for the ratification of the pending free trade deal with South Korea, the Commerce Department said Friday.
Congress is poised to ratify a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia in spite of vehement opposition both here in the US and in Colombia.
The lingering beef dispute was why Taiwan has been unable to hold a new round of high-level trade talks with the United States and why it has lost congressional support for the negotiation, according to a US official Tuesday.
In Colombia's largest demonstration since President Juan Manuel Santos took office last August, tens of thousands of unionists, students and teachers demonstrated throughout the country on April 7 to protest a free trade agreement with the US and proposed changes in the education system that they say will lead to privatization.
The White House could send a free trade pact with Colombia to Congress for approval within weeks now that a bilateral agreement on labor concerns has been reached, a top US official said on Monday.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, a longtime critic of trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, last week assailed the new agreement between the Obama administration and Colombia, charging that "it merely represents another example of Washington being out-of-touch with concerns and values of most Americans."
The list of US criticisms of human rights infringements in Panama under the Martinelli administration continues to grow and the president, unlike the leaders of other countries seeking an FTA, has still not been invited to the White House.
The Finance Ministry wants to cancel the bilateral investment agreement with the US, but that idea faces powerful opposition
A new U.S. deal with Colombia to address longstanding labor concerns should clear the way for Congress to pass three long-stalled free trade agreements by July, industry officials said on Friday.
