Obama Advisor: We Want to Make Colombia FTA Possible

(Disclosure: Global Trade Watch has no preference among the candidates.)

Several presidential campaign advisors and otherwise big wigs spoke at the 12th annual Corporación Andina De Fomento (CAF) conference on trade and investment in the Americas. Dan Restrepo is Obama's Latin America dude, and a Center for American Progress staffer who hosted Colombian President Alvaro Uribe a while back. (Here are the pics in case you forgot.) Here is what Rossella Brevetti of BNA reported:

Regarding the Colombia FTA, Restrepo noted that Obama has expressed concern on a number of occasions over the continuing level of violence against trade unionists in Colombia. Colombia can consolidate its past security gains by bringing an end to the impunity that surrounds the violence, Restrepo said. "Unfortunately there has not been as much progress as one would like to see with regard to impunity," he remarked. "It's important to continue down that path," he said.

"We understand the importance of the FTA to the Colombian government ... We want to work to make it possible," Restrepo said. He indicated that Obama needs greater confidence that the Colombian government can hold people accountable for past abuses.