"Additional efforts should be undertaken to expand hemispheric trade, even under current political conditions," writes COA's Eric Farnsworth for The Huffington Post.

In a June 17 letter to the U.S. House Majority Leader John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the Council of the Americas urges swift passage of free-trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.

During COA's annual Washington Conference, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Latin American governments to speed up reforms, saying that U.S. President Barack Obama is pushing to get Congress to pass the stalled trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.

View highlights from Council of the Americas' 41st Annual Washington Conference on the Americas, held May 10-11, 2011.

Four Latin American countries on the Pacific Rim are banding together to increase regional clout and Asia-Pacific trade. On April 28, the leaders of Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru meet in Lima to ink the Pacific Arc agreement.

The U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement has moved closer to submission to Congress. A new COA update looks at the progress and potential next steps for advancing the bilateral trade pact.

"Colombian goods already have low-tariff access to the U.S. market. So why not help U.S. exporters by opening up theirs?" write Senators Max Baucus and John Kerry in this op-ed for The Wall Street Journal.