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(Washington, DC) - Rep. Wally Herger, ranking member of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, today hailed passage of H.R. 3688, legislation to implement the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement. The agreement would reduce trade barriers and create new market access for U.S. goods and services entering Peru. Click here to watch Herger's speech on the House floor in support of the agreement. Click here for the text.
"Free trade is so important for the United States, and especially for our home state of California," Herger stated. "We sell about a third of our crops to other countries and rely on this growing ability to export to reach the 95 percent of the world's consumers who live outside of the U.S. If we don't continue to aggressively seek market-opening trade agreements, it is Americans who would lose market opportunities to the Chinese and Europeans who are brokering deals that lock out U.S. products.
"The Peru agreement is so important for just this reason," continued Herger. "Peru currently has open access to our market. But our exports face tariffs - or border taxes - of 12 to 25 percent. The agreement with Peru would end this unfair treatment. California alone sold more than $180 million of goods to Peru in 2006--products such as computers, machinery, and agricultural goods. With greater access into Peru's market, American sales to our free-trading partner are expected to jump by more than one billion dollars, which means more business for California companies and growers and more jobs for American workers."
Herger concluded, "The geopolitical advantages of the agreement are critical as well. Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Hugo Chavez is waging a war of words against the U.S. in Latin America. But rather than embrace his anti-democratic, anti-free market rhetoric, Peru’s leaders have embraced market-oriented policies that are helping to bolster Peru as one of the fastest growing emerging economies. This is just the kind of friend we want in Latin America. For this reason, Congress needs to also take action and approve our agreements with Colombia and Panama."
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