ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of United States trade policy in reviving neoliberalism in the Americas. The bilateral track bore more fruit in Latin America, where the George H. W. Bush and Obama administrations signed and implemented Free Trade Agreement (FTAs) with Chile, Peru, Panama and Colombia. Venezuela's departure from the Community of Andean Nations (CAN), another multilateral forum, left CAN weakened at a time when Washington was actively pursuing free trade deals with several of its members, including Peru and Colombia. In 2003 and 2004, with the FTAA talks deteriorating, the Bush administration launched formal negotiations for bilateral free trade agreements with Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama and Peru. Nonetheless, the United States would leverage the discussion over the Andean FTA into bilateral agreements with Peru and Colombia. The slow pace of the ratification of the Panama and Colombia agreements was attributable to the eroding consensus on trade in the US Congress.
