New Colombian Leader Wants U.S. Trade Help : Latin America: He blames the United States for killing the coffee agreement. Prices for Colombia’s biggest legal export have plummeted.

President-elect Cesar Gaviria is asking the United States for a more cooperative policy toward Colombian exports as a way of supporting this country’s costly fight against cocaine traffic.

Gaviria, a member of the governing Liberal Party, was elected Sunday and will take office Aug. 7. In a victory speech, he said his government will need more than “rhetorical support” from cocaine-consuming countries against violent traffickers.

“Not only should discrimination against our export products end, but we should be given clear trade support to meet, in part, the tremendous economic cost that we are incurring,” he said.

In an interview on the eve of the elections, Gaviria said there is “uneasiness in Colombia” over U.S. trade discrimination, and he complained about the American role in last July’s collapse of the International Coffee Agreement.

“There is a lot of dismay over how the United States was the main one responsible last year for the end of the coffee agreement, something that has done a lot of harm to Colombia,” he said in the interview.

The pact set prices to be paid by consuming countries and export quotas for producing countries. The United States wanted changes in quotas that would allow it to buy more high-grade coffee from Colombia and Central America, but Brazil and other producers of lower-grade coffee balked.

The United States also objected that producing countries in the agreement were selling coffee to consuming countries outside the agreement at lower prices than those paid by countries in the pact.

Negotiations on the agreement stalled in London last July. The agreement collapsed, and world prices for unroasted Colombian coffee plunged from about $1.40 a pound to as little as 76 cents within a few months.

Colombian officials calculate that the country lost more than $100 million last year because of the collapse and will lose at least $200 million this year.

Colombia is the world’s No. 2 coffee exporter, after Brazil. Coffee is the biggest legal Colombian export-earner, bringing in more than $1 billion a year.

President Bush pledged last fall that the United States will do everything possible to reach a new coffee agreement as a special concession to Colombia.

Gaviria has also complained of U.S. import duties on Colombian flowers, reflecting flower growers’ complaints. But a U.S. official in Colombia said this week that a ruling in early May by the U.S. International Trade Commission lowers the average tariff paid on Colombian flowers from 4 cents a flower to less than one cent.

Large flower growers whose production costs are inspected individually by U.S. officials generally pay low duties, but many small producers are charged higher tariffs under anti-dumping regulations. The U.S. official said their complaints are echoed by Gaviria and the current Colombian administration.

The complaints are expected to be among trade concerns voiced by President Virgilio Barco Vargas in a meeting scheduled next Tuesday with President Bush in Washington.

Colombia earns more than $200 million a year from flower exports, and the United States buys about 80%. About 60,000 Colombian families are said to make their living from the flower industry.

The Bush Administration has agreed to help Colombia export other products such as textiles, clothing and exotic fruits to the United States. One U.S. plan would give Colombia a big annual quota for textiles and clothing that would allow years of production growth.

But the American official here said Colombians want a blanket U.S. promise that there will be no restrictions on their exports. “We’re not going to give that,” he said.

Foreign trade growth is a cornerstone of Gaviria’s economic plan. He has proposed gradual reductions in Colombian import barriers as part of a plan to “internationalize” the economy.