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Barriers Be Gone: U.S. Free-Trade Agreements

By Peter Bell, Brian McGill and Ryan Morris

Updated: October 13, 2011 | 1:45 p.m.
October 13, 2011 | 11:48 a.m.

The U.S. now has 20 bilateral free-trade agreements, including the ones with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea passed by the House and Senate on Wednesday.

Those three deals are the first to pass Congress since Democrats took control of both the House and Senate in the 2006 midterm elections.

A number of FTAs had been enacted in previous years under President George W. Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress, and the new agreements were negotiated then as well. But the deals--particularly the one with Colombia--lacked Democratic support.

Supporters of FTAs espoused their role in boosting U.S. exports, which have been a rare bright spot for the U.S. economy as it slowly recovers from recession.

Click on the map to see each country's trade history with the U.S., in billions of dollars by year, and when free-trade agreements went into effect.