Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said he hopes the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement (FTA) would take effect before the end of the year.
“We support an open skies agreement with the United States that takes effect in January next year at about the time you must enter the Free Trade but I hope that the Treaty enters into force before,” Santos told Caracol Radio.
The U.S.-Colombian FTA was signed in November 2006 but was delayed by the U.S. Congress until October of 2011.
The delay partly stemmed from Colombia’s record of labor violence. Earlier this month the US union federation AFL-CIO condemned the FTA’s passage as a ‘green light,’ for union leader killings in Colombia.
The U.S. and Colombia are still negotiating issues regarding customs and sanitation before the FTA can be fully implemented.
