What is the relationship between the FTA and food sovereignty in Colombia?
The US-Colombia free trade agreement was negotiated on the basis of two criteria. One, Colombia agreed that it would slash tariffs on all US farm products to zero. In five years, 89% of US imports would enter Colombia tariff-free. Within ten years, an even broader group of items would be covered. And within 18 years, all agricultural produce from the US would face zero tariffs at the Colombian border. But while Colombia negotiated this way, and this is the second element, the United States did not remove its system of agricultural subsidies that enables it to export its surpluses – especially cereals, oilseeds, meat, dairy products, fruit and temperate vegetables – at prices below the cost of production. In other words, dumping. So what the government did was to legalise US agricultural dumping in Colombia. In this sense, our country has opted to increase its dependency on foreign food (which started with the introduction of the neoliberal model and the so-called economic opening). In
