The Proposed U.S.-Panama Free Trade Agreement

On June 28, 2007, after two and a half years of negotiation, the United States and Panama signed a reciprocal free trade agreement FTA. Negotiations were formally concluded on December 16, 2006, with an understanding that further changes to labor, environment, and intellectual property rights IPR chapters would be made pursuant to future detailed congressional input. These changes were agreed to in late June 2007, in time for the FTA to be considered under Trade Promotion Authority TPA legislation before it expired on July 1, 2007. TPA allows Congress to consider trade implementing bills under expedited procedures. Panamas legislature approved the FTA 58 to 4 on July 11, 2007. The 110th Congress did not take up the agreement, and so far there is little indication that the 111th Congress is ready to act on the FTA. The proposed U.S.-Panama FTA is a comprehensive agreement. Some 88 of U.S. commercial and industrial exports would become duty-free upon implementation, with remaining tariffs phased out over a ten-year period. Over 60 of U.S. farms exports to Panama also would achieve immediate duty-free status, with tariffs and tariff rate quotas TRQs on select farm products to be phased out by year 17 of the agreement. Panama and the United States signed a separate bilateral agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary SPS issues that would recognize U.S. food safety inspection as equivalent to Panamanian standards, which will expedite entry of U.S. meat and poultry exports. The FTA also consummates understandings on telecommunications, services trade, government procurement, investment, and intellectual property rights.