Bush Offers Trade Package to Aid Andean Economies : Latin America: The U.S. initiative is a move to reward nations fighting drug trafficking.

President Bush unveiled a new package of trade initiatives Wednesday designed to boost the domestic economies and lift the flagging spirits of the Andean nations that are attempting to crack down on narcotics trafficking.

The bid to increase trade between the United States and the region grew out of a pledge that the President made last month to visiting Colombian President Virgilio Barco Vargas, whose own “all-out war” against drug traffickers has met with waning public support.

By making it clear that continued anti-drug efforts will be rewarded with economic assistance, the Administration hopes to persuade Colombia and other cocaine-producing nations to persist in the offensives against enterprises central to their economies.

“Healthy economies are the only lasting solution for eliminating the drug trade and substituting legitimate trade,” Bush said in a statement.

The initiatives would eliminate tariffs on a number of products imported by the United States from Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela.

An Administration official listed cut flowers and floor tiles as the products most likely to benefit from the favorable treatment.

The White House announcement came as members of Congress stepped up pressure on the Administration to offer further support for the Colombian campaign by imposing restrictions on exports of American-made weapons contained in the arsenals of cocaine cartels.

At a Capitol Hill hearing, U.S. officials disclosed results of a new investigation showing that a substantial majority of weapons seized from cartel strongholds were of American origin.

But to the exasperation of Democratic members of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, they said that the Administration would strongly oppose any new legislation designed to restrict sales or exports of such weapons.

In announcing the trade initiatives, Bush said that he hopes the United States can use its purchasing power to help create “economic alternatives to drug trafficking” in the five Andean nations, which produce virtually all of the cocaine consumed in the world.

The White House did not describe the plan in specific terms, and Administration officials said they could not estimate the value of the package. The five nations exported $9.4 billion worth of goods to the United States in 1988.

The plan’s primary element would invite the Andean nations to seek duty-free trade access to U.S. markets under the Generalized System of Preferences.

In his meeting with Colombia’s Barco on Sept. 28, Bush also promised that the United States would assume leadership in an effort to repair an international coffee accord that collapsed last summer, sending prices plunging and devastating Bogota’s economy. That effort is continuing, officials said.