COLOMBIAN TO ASK BUSH FOR TRADE HELP

BOGOTA -- When President Andres Pastrana travels to Washington this
weekend for his first meeting with President Bush, he will ask for
trade preferences to spur his country's economic growth, rather than
pressing ahead with earlier plans to request $600 million a year in
new aid.

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Pastrana said he wanted to steer the
discussion away from the fight against drug trafficking and the annual
aid Colombia would need to finance the effort.

"The idea is to show another face, so that the topic is not just
narco-trafficking, but rather the commerce theme," said the president,
who will leave for the United States on Sunday and meet with Mr. Bush
on Tuesday.

"For that reason, we are saying to the United States, 'We are not
interested in the dollar from the United States,' " Mr. Pastrana said.
"If you give us the possibility to compete, to engage in global
commerce, we will compete with the world."

Mr. Pastrana, whose presidency ends next year, said he wanted Colombia
to receive the same tariff reductions given to Caribbean and Central
American nations through last year's Caribbean Basin Initiative.
Colombia, not covered by that trade pact, is instead one of four
countries included in the Andean Trade Preference Act, a decade-old
accord that is up for renewal in December.

But the Andean pact, which was intended to stimulate commerce in
drug-producing countries, does not offer benefits for textiles and
apparel, important products of Colombia. And Colombia's government,
locked in a grinding guerrilla war while trying to extricate itself
from its worst recession in 70 years, says it needs immediate trade
preferences to save jobs, especially in the textile industry.

Mr. Pastrana said that unless Colombia received trade preferences,
some 200,000 jobs could be lost here as American buyers rush to import
goods from Caribbean Initiative countries. That could have dire
consequences, he said, for a country that has come to recognize that
economic and social problems must be resolved if a 37-year-old
conflict is to end.

The president said Colombia needed economic accords that would
"protect jobs for Colombians, which is what will prevent that a good
part of the young men and women go off to the conflict, that they go
to war."

His comments were in contrast to earlier comments from Colombian
officials who said they wanted the Bush administration to provide, for
the foreseeable future, about $600 million in annual assistance for
economic and social programs, especially in coca-producing regions.

Last year, the United States Congress approved a two-year $1.3 billion
program to the Andean region, most of it in military aid to Colombia.
The aid, intended to wipe out 50 percent of Colombia's coca crop by
2005, made Colombia the third-largest recipient of American foreign
aid.

But Colombian officials, as well as Congressional leaders, voiced
concern that unless Colombia received sustained aid in the coming
years, the country would be unable to resolve deep-seated problems
that led people to grow coca in the first place. Colombia's ambassador
in Washington, Luis Alberto Moreno, was among those who said his
country needed $600 million annually in the coming years.

In recent weeks, American policy makers and legislators have talked
about a smaller package, perhaps $400 million for Colombia and $600
million more to be spread among Colombia's neighbors, which are
suffering spillover from Colombia's conflict. Even that proposal,
however, may be pared back because of the Bush administration's
proposed tax cuts.

"That's still under debate in Washington," said a high-ranking United
States official who has worked on the proposals. "What I've heard is,
it's under very close scrutiny."

The meeting between the two presidents, both sons of former
presidents, comes as American aid in the form of helicopters and
training for counternarcotics battalions of the army has wiped away
about 75,000 acres of coca in Colombia's coca-growing provinces of
Putumayo and Caqueta in two months. Fumigation has destroyed nearly a
third of that southern region's coca crop, a feat that has American
and Colombian officials boasting about the success of eradication programs.

But in formulating a policy toward Colombia, the Bush administration
will have to contend with a series of new problems that have arisen
since the Clinton administration won support for its antidrug program
here.

American and Colombian officials say, for instance, that earlier
estimates of coca production in Colombia were too conservative.
Instead of 300,000 acres of coca, they say, there were probably
370,000 acres or more when spraying began in late December. And much
of this was situated not in rebel strongholds, but rather in regions
run by right-wing paramilitaries.

All of this comes at a time when Colombia is struggling with a 20
percent unemployment rate and the flight of capital out of the country.

Experts say the Bush administration must decide whether to maintain
the Clinton administration's program, or re-engineer aid and look for
other ways to bolster the Colombian state.

"I think for Bush it has to be a real question of, is this a first
step to a larger, continued plan?" said Russell Crandall, a political
scientist at Davidson College in North Carolina whose book on American
policy toward Colombia will be published this year. "Or will they say,
'Well, this is Clinton's plan, and we're going to try something
different?' "

Some in Congress have seen the need for legislation to help Colombia
- -- which until the mid-1990's had one of Latin America's healthiest
economies -- out of its doldrums. Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of
Florida, has introduced a bill that would renew the Andean trade pact
sooner, cutting tariffs for textiles and other products that Colombia
and its neighbors produce, like oil and petroleum byproducts.

Said Michael Shifter, a Colombia expert at the Inter-American
Dialogue, a Washington-based policy research group, "If you're really
serious about turning around Colombia, and one of the instruments is
to eradicate the coca fields, then certainly the other instrument is a
trade bill that creates employment."

Mr. Pastrana said he considered a quick expansion of the Andean pact a
necessity if Colombia was to recover economically.

"We cannot wait until next year or we'll get killed," he said,
referring to textile manufacturers covered by the Caribbean
initiative. "People will prefer to make their investments in Central
America rather than come to Colombia because they can now begin to
capture the market."