Colombian agricultural product competitiveness under the free trade agreement with the United States: analysis of the comparative advantages

This article studies the competitiveness of Colombian agricultural products relative to those of the United States, with a view to assessing the extent to which the free trade agreement between the two countries represents a risk or an opportunity for Colombia. Colombia’s revealed comparative advantages, in the trade zone it forms with the United States, are calculated for 60 groups of agricultural products and their derivatives, chosen from the Standard Classification for International Trade (SITC), using the method of the Center for International Prospective Studies and Information (CEPII). Most of the product groups display no comparative advantage or comparative disadvantage, so their competitiveness needs to be strengthened to enable trade in agricultural products with the United States to really contribute to the growth of the Colombian economy.