The president of the World Bank hopes the U.S. will accept a trade deal
with regional partner, Colombia.

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA (MAY 08, 2008) GOVERNMENT TV -

The U.S. Congress should pass the Colombian free trade agreement to
help the Andean country strengthen its economy and improve its democratic
institutions, the World Bank said on Thursday (May 08).
    U.S. Congressional Democrats have blocked passage of the pact, saying
that conservative President Alvaro Uribe has not done enough to crack down on
right-wing militias that have killed hundreds of labor union members in the
name of combating Marxist rebels.
    "It's my view that I hope U.S. Congress Democrats or Republicans
will consider the agreement and I hope they'll pass it," said World Bank
President Robert Zoellick, who started negotiating the Colombian trade deal in
2004 when he was U.S. Trade Representative.
    The country's economy has picked up under Uribe, a hard-liner on
security and the White House's strongest ally in South America. Colombia has
received about $5.5 billion in mostly military aid from the United States
since 2000.
    But the country remains the world's biggest cocaine exporter and is
mired in a four-decade-old guerrilla war with a mosaic of illegal groups
battling for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes.
    Zoellick also encouraged countries to dip tariffs so that food
inflation would be tempered.
    "We tried to lower the tariffs which will lower the cost of food
and this is particularly important for poor people, so one of the things that
you have observe is as food prices have gone up globally some countries are
now trying to lower tariffs and that's exactly what we try to urge countries
to do as part of the trade negotiation," Zoellick said.
    The World Bank criticized the United States on Wednesday for funneling
its corn crop into biofuel production while food price soar across the world,
causing hunger, riots and hoarding in poor countries.
    The trend is typically blamed on a combination of factors like higher
food consumption in fast growing economies like China, and on bad weather that
has hit crops.