[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2008, Book I)]
[April 19, 2008]
[Pages 532-533]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's Radio Address
April 19, 2008

    Good morning. Next week, I will be hosting the North American 
Leaders' Summit in New Orleans. This event will give me an opportunity 
to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon to discuss some of the most 
significant issues facing our hemisphere and the world.
    One of the issues I will be discussing with these leaders 
is the importance of expanding trade in our hemisphere. Recently, I sent 
Congress an agreement that would expand America's access to markets in 
Colombia. Unfortunately, the Speaker of the House has chosen to block the Colombia free trade agreement 
instead of giving it an up-or-down vote that Congress committed to. Her 
action is unprecedented and extremely unfortunate. I hope that the 
Speaker will change her mind. If she does not, the agreement will be 
dead. And this will be bad for American workers and bad for America's 
national security.
    And here is why. Today, almost all of Colombia's exports to the 
United States enter duty free. But the 9,000 American businesses that 
export to Colombia, including nearly 8,000 small and midsized firms, 
face significant tariffs on their products. The situation is completely 
one sided. Our markets are open to Colombian products, but barriers that 
make it harder to sell American goods in Colombia remain. If the free 
trade agreement were implemented, however, most of Colombia's tariffs on 
American goods would be eliminated immediately.
    There's also a strategic imperative to approve the agreement. By 
obstructing this agreement, Congress is signaling to a watching 
hemisphere that America cannot be trusted to support its friends. Over 
the past 6 years, Colombia's President Uribe has been a steadfast ally of the United States. He's 
transformed his country from a near-failed state to a stable democracy 
with a growing economy. He has partnered with America in the fight 
against drugs and terror. And he has addressed virtually every one of 
Congress's concerns, including revising the free trade agreement to 
include some of the most rigorous labor and environmental protections in 
history.
    He has done all this while his 
country is under violent assault from a terrorist organization and 
facing constant intimidation from anti-American regimes in the region. 
As Canada's Prime Minister Harper has said, 
``If the U.S. turns its back on its friends in Colombia, this will set 
back our cause far more than any Latin American dictator could hope to 
achieve.''
    Leaders in Congress have made a serious error, but it is not too 
late to get it right. This week, a long list of senior officials from 
Democratic administrations and Democrats from previous Congresses signed 
a letter urging Congress to approve the agreement this year. They wrote, 
quote, ``We feel that the treaty should be considered as soon as 
possible and that any obstacles should be quickly and amicably 
resolved.'' I strongly agree. I believe that if the Speaker allows a vote on the merits, a majority of the House of 
Representatives will approve the trade agreement. So I urge leaders in 
Congress to reconsider their position, recognize the stakes at hand, and 
approve the Colombia agreement as soon as possible.
    Thank you for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 7:35 a.m. on April 18 in the Cabinet 
Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on April 19. The 
transcript was made available by the Office of the Press Secretary on 
April 18, but was embargoed for release until the broadcast. The Office 
of the Press Secretary

[[Page 533]]

also released a Spanish language transcript of this address.