Chile–United States Free Trade Agreement

[7] In February 1997 Chile's President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle visited the U.S. Congress and declared his support for his country to join NAFTA.

[10] On August 1, 2002, the U.S. Senate granted fast-track authority to President George W. Bush to negotiate a free trade agreement with Chile and other countries.

U.S Trade Representative Robert Zoellick stated that both President Bush and the U.S. Congress were "disappointed" by Chile's lack of support in the Iraq war and said there was no set time-frame for a signing of the pact.

On April 23, 2003 U.S Secretary of State Colin Powell said the FTA would be signed and approved but they were looking for the appropriate moment to submit it to Congress.

[13] The treaty was finally signed on June 6, 2003, at the Vizcaya Palace in Miami by Chile's Foreign Affairs Minister Soledad Alvear and Zoellick.

Chile eliminate tariffs immediately on pork and pork products, beef offal, durum wheat, barley, barley malt, sorghum, soybeans and soybean meal, pasta, breakfast cereals, cereal preparations, and sunflower seeds.

Access for beef on both sides will be liberalized over 4 years, beginning with a 1,000-metric-ton quota, a 10-percent annual growth factor, and a linear phase-out of the out-of-quota tariff rate.

The FTA employs product-specific rules of origin similar to those contained in the NAFTA, defining the general rule to consider a good as affected for the agreement when “the good is wholly obtained or produced entirely in the territory of one or both of the Parties” distinguish it from “simple combining or packaging operations” that are not covered by this FTA.

Address bilateral sanitary and phytosanitary matters Establish cooperation on regulatory issues, such as equivalence of technical regulations and standards.

The former Chilean minister of foreign relations, Hernán Errázuriz questioned whether the accord should “even be called a free trade agreement” because it “contains quotas for many products, allows the United States to retain broad antidumping attributes and does not control the damage of billions of dollars in distorted agricultural subsidies.”[18] The U.S. House Representative Barney Frank, criticizes the agreement for their deregulation over short-term capital flows, a key factor for Chile's successful economy.