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United States-Peru Free Trade Agreement Moves to Full House for Consideration
The House Committee on Ways and Means today approved, 39-0, implementing language for the United States-Peru free trade agreement. The measure now moves to the House Floor for consideration by the body next week.
With committee approval of the agreement, a release from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative noted:
For years, nearly all of Peru’s goods have entered the United States duty-free. With this vote, committee members are opening up Peru’s market to U.S. exports and cementing the benefits of two-way trade for both our nations.
Background
The U.S. Commerce Department reports that bilateral free trade agreements help open up foreign markets to U.S. exporters. Currently, the United States has implemented free trade agreements with 14 countries.
In 2006, more than 90% of Peruvian, Colombian and Panamanian imports into the United States entered duty-free under unilateral U.S. trade preference programs, such as the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA) and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), or under zero Normal Trade Relations (NTR) tariffs. Free trade agreement would open these markets to U.S. exporters as they will provide duty-free treatment for U.S. exports to countries that already purchase from the United States and would “level the playing field” for U.S. workers, businesses and agriculture. The
The United States is Peru’s leading trading partner, accounting for 23.3% of Peru’s exports and supplying 16.4% of the country’s imports in 2006. Bilateral trade between the two countries has more than doubled over the past decade from $3 billion in 1996 to $8.8 billion in two-way trade in 2006, due in large part to the ATPA.
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