Following an official exchange of letters confirming completion of applicable legal requirements and procedures, the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) will take effect May 15, according to a summary notice in USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) International Egg and Poultry Review this week.
Colombia currently has a 20-percent import duty on U.S. chicken leg quarters. When the agreement is implemented, Colombia will provide the United States an immediate duty-free 27,040 metric ton tariff rate quota (TRQ) that increases 4 percent annually. The 164.4 percent over-quota tariff for fresh, chilled, and frozen leg quarters and the 70 percent over quota tariff for processed leg quarters will be phased out over 18 years with no reduction happening the first six years of the TPA. Colombia will also have access to a safeguard on chicken leg quarters in case of an annual import surge during the 18 year tariff phase-out period.
Colombia will provide a 412 ton spent fowl TRQ which will increase 3 percent annually and the 45 percent over-quota tariff will phase out over 18 years. Spent fowl will also have access to an annual import surge safeguard during the phase-out period. Also, duties on eggs for consumption will phase out over 10 years, tariffs on turkey products over five years, and immediately on poultry products such as breast meat and wings.
During the bilateral negotiating process, Colombia sought lenient agriculture positions resulting in the United States agreeing to give Colombia’s most sensitive sectors longer tariff phase-out periods. Poultry is one of the commodities Colombia considers most sensitive, the AMS report said.
