Yesterday I was doing what I usually do since moving back to Boston, on line chatting with a friend back in Colombia. After the usual greetings she says to me " You will never guess who is traveling to the States" in which I respond " Wow! you finally got a visa, when are you coming?"
"No silly, not me, it is Francisco Santos. " Excuse me, who is that?" Mind you I returned only a month ago from Colombia after living there for 18 months and I had no idea who this guy was, Oh, I have heard of President Uribe and Defense Minister Santos , But Francisco Santos never heard of him and don’t know how many Colombians even know who he is, let alone what he does.
She goes on to tell me he is the Vice President of Colombia and heading to the States for an important mission to promote investment in Colombia.
I was like wait a minute. Where on God’s green earth has Colombia and this Santos guy been for the last 4 years. He does know the United States is in the middle of an economic meltdown . There isn’t a penny to be had for investment here in the States let alone investing in some other country. Why wasn’t he knocking on the door of the GE’s and Dell's four years ago when there was piles of money to be had for investment in other countries. Vice President Santos could surely have found U.S. companies to partner with Colombian companies, setting up manufacturing in Colombia , Which they could have sold the product not only in Colombia but around Latin America. Thus bypassing Colombia tariffs. Think of the jobs that might have been created.
She tells me that during this time Colombia was busy working on the FTA with the United States. I was like hmm... So your telling me after fighting so hard the first four years in office to make Colombia secure and more stable so that foreign investors would start coming, President Uribe decided to put all his eggs in the basket of FTA and President Bush? I understand he and many others were going around telling the country that with FTA would come many jobs for Colombia. But most of the jobs that would come from a FTA had already been created, Colombia has had Favorite Nation status with the United States for sometime now, in which many products made in Colombia are imported to the U.S. tariff free. The jobs created because of this status are jobs a FTA would create. Uribe is a smart man, clearly he knew the FTA would create little if any new jobs, right?
After a rather long pause she replies to me " Well is seems President Bush and President Uribe have been so preoccupied swapping war stories , that they have forgotten about their countries economies sitting in the back seat for the last four years."
Author Michael Curtin is living in Boston , Ma USA , having returned to the USA recently after living in Colombia for 18 months
