"We've negotiated a free trade agreement. We've still got some details to work out, but we've committed ourselves to working out those details and try to get this done as quickly as we can," Bush told reporters after meeting with Uribe.
The United States and Colombia declared in February they had reached an agreement after almost two years of talks. That happened just a few months after the United States reached a free trade pact with Colombia's neighbor Peru.
But since the formal end of talks, Washington and Bogota have continued to wrangle over "technical" details of the agricultural portion of the pact. That section contains many commitments that could be difficult for Colombia to implement because of opposition from its agricultural sector.
Uribe, a staunch ally of Washington who was recently re-elected by a wide margin, said he discussed "some pending points" of the free trade agreement with Bush, but did not elaborate on the outstanding issues.
A spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office refused to provide more detail, but said Uribe and USTR Susan Schwab met separately and "had a good exchange on the outstanding issues and identified next steps to advance the discussion and secure closure."
Uribe also raised concern about U.S. trade benefits for Andean nations that expire at the end of the year, USTR spokeswoman Neena Moorjani said.
"Ambassador Schwab indicated that this reinforces the importance of resolving outstanding issues so we can move ahead with the free trade agreement," Moorjani said.
The United States has allowed Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia to export most of their goods to the United States without paying import duties since the early 1990s.
OXFAM REPORT
The goal of permanently locking in those trade benefits was a major reason Colombia, Peru and Ecuador began free trade talks with the United States in May 2004. Ecuador has stumbled in its efforts to reach a deal with the United States and Bolivia never advanced from observer status in the talks.
Uribe's visit coincided with a new report released on Wednesday by Oxfam International which warned that the U.S. trade pacts with Peru and Colombia could have "a devastating impact" on poor people in those countries.
The international development group warned that provisions requiring the countries to open their markets to subsidized U.S. farm goods could hurt vulnerable rural sectors. Oxfam also raised concern that other provisions could increase the cost of life-saving medicine in the two countries.
In a sign of the opposition awaiting the Colombia agreement in the U.S. Congress, the AFL-CIO is releasing a report on Thursday that it said would focus "on the appalling conditions for workers in Colombia, the country with the highest assassination rate of trade unionists in the world."