MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Crucial day for fast track

The US Senate is expected to approve this Thursday the Trade Promotion Authority, TPA, the former “fast track” that will enable the President Bush administration to involve in trade agreements with other countries and blocks.

"The TPÃâ€Å¾ will prove to our allies and friends our commitment with free trade", said a White House spokesperson after it was known a political agreement on the issue had been reached in Congress.

The US Executive has been longing for the TPA, --and the Bush administration particularly made it a campaign promise--, to promote a trade agreement with the rest of the American continent, the Free Trade Association of the Americas that is expected to extend from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

The bill to be considered this Thursday also includes a ten years extension of the special trade tariff preferences for the Andean countries that collaborate with Washington in combating the drug trade. Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Bolivia have been lobbying intensely for the extension of the program that ends next December.

The special authority has been stalled in Congress since 1994 when the Clinton administration was unable to convince Congress of the benefits of free trade.

Actually Democrats with the support of trade unions and environmentalists have been the main opponents to TPA fearing the loss of jobs, and the moving of factories from the United States to countries with cheaper labor.

To prevent this, the new bill includes special health and redundancy benefits for those US workers that might loose their jobs as a result of the side effects of the free trade agreements.