The Columbian Free Trade Agreement vs. the Democrats’ Anti-American Partisan Politics
- Posted by Beth on April 25th, 2008 filed in Barack Obama, General, Hillary Clinton, International, Moonbats, Politics, Stupid Bush · Columbia · Congress · economy · trade
(Ticker via Instapundit.)
Stupid Democrats - including Barack Obama, of course, and now Hillary Clinton (although she’ll change her mind if it serves her political interests) - oppose the US-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement because they’re playing election year faux-populist protectionist politics. How “populist” is it, though, that exports to Columbia carry high tariffs? It isn’t. It’s craven partisan politics.
Colombia is the United States’ largest market in South America. This agreement will level the playing field for California’s industries and help them to compete better with other countries that export goods to Colombia. Because of high tariffs, California only exported $321 million in merchandise to Colombia last year, less than 1 percent of the $134 billion worth of exports our state shipped worldwide.
If the agreement takes effect, California stands to gain billions in new business opportunities by removing costly tariffs that put our goods at a disadvantage and keep many Colombian consumers from buying our products.
Unfortunately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently refused to allow a vote in Congress on the Colombian trade agreement. Instead of representing California’s best economic interest, Pelosi is playing partisan politics.
This should be a no-brainer, but look at how Pelosi’s defenders present their position here (in the comments). It’s Bush Derangement Syndrome, and nothing more.
Remember New Orleans? Remember how they’re still trying to recover post-Katrina?
At this week’s Three Amigos summit in New Orleans, where Mexico, the U.S. and Canada met to discuss and defend free trade, President Bush was right to also bring forth New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.
The mayor of the hurricane-hit city made an impassioned plea to Congress to pass the Colombia free trade agreement for New Orleans’ sake. He knows how badly his city needs every break it can get, three years after the biggest disaster to ever hit a U.S. metropolitan area.
“New Orleans is becoming an even greater international city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,” Nagin wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last November, “and we are making every effort to capitalize on trade liberalization that will flow from these FTAs (free trade agreements). Our port system is ideally situated to take advantage of the Latin American FTAs.”
That’s right–even Ray Nagin understands it.
Democrats have made New Orleans the cornerstone of their diatribe against President Bush. They’ve derided the city’s slow pace of recovery from the nation’s most devastating natural disaster, as well as wasteful aid spending.
But disregarding the pleas of Mayor Nagin, whose city will uniquely benefit from free trade with Colombia, makes them look like carpetbaggers. Nagin’s call ought to be a warning to Pelosi that Democrats’ sincerity about recovery in the Big Easy is on the line.
Frankly, they discredited their claim to sincerity about everything long ago.
The Case for Columbia (PDF, but sort of viewable below)
The U.S.-Colombia TPA has plenty to offer U.S. exporters, service providers and investors. Specifically, the U.S.-Colombia TPA:
* Levels the playing field for U.S. companies who will enjoy tariff free access into Colombia once the Agreement takes full effect.
* Provides new market access for U.S. consumer and industrial products such as textiles and agricultural products.
* Provides unprecedented access to government procurement.
* Liberalizes the services sectors.
* Opens the Colombian market to remanufactured goods.
* Protects U.S. investments in the region.
* Strengthens protections for U.S. patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.
* Improves customs facilitation.
* Provides benefits to small and medium sized exporters.
* Addresses government transparency and corruption, worker rights, protection of the environment, trade capacity building and dispute settlement.
* Requires important reforms of the domestic legal and business environment that are key to encouraging business development and investment.
This isn’t an “exciting” issue for most people, but it’s important, and it’s just another reason why the Democrats are WRONG. It’s just another reason why Barack Obama is horribly wrong about everything–this fits right in with his Marxist/statist ideology, and that ideology has an immediate, tangible, negative impact on America.
Contact Grandma Pelosi (and your Congressman) and tell her Americans deserve better.
Lord Bitememan says:
To me this is worse than an economic blunder. At a time when more and more of South America is turning to Chavezism we are humiliating a major ally in the region. The Democrats are so quick to hail their mindfulness of sensitivities abroad, but between this and the shameful and racist humiliation of our allies in Dubai (Dubai Ports World deal which they scuttled simply because they were Arabs) I’m just not seeing this respect for other nations and peoples they tout.
Beth says:
Amen to that, LB. The Democrats are fucking hypocrites. They’re obviously only interested in self-preservation, rather than what’s in their constituents’ and all of America’s best interests. There simply is no good reason to hold this up.
And yeah, I wasn’t happy about that Dubai shit, either. It was ultimately self-defeating, and it’s yet another thing where I thought my fellow conservatives were dead wrong - and where I thought bloggers (far more toward the ideological extremes than the rest of the public, much less the gubmint) had a disproportionate influence in our public policy. People talk about how the Nutroots has dragged the Democratic Party to the hard left, but they fail to see how that theory applies to the GOP as well. Dubai was a perfect example of it.
jh says:
Great post. I have linked. I am sort of stupid at the internet at times. How do I put that ticker on my blog?
Beth says:
http://trade.gov/ticker-instructions.asp
Sorry, I thought I had that linked in the post, but I guess I forgot.
Scott Allan says:
The best way to fight the war on drugs and poverty is to give the Colombian people some hope and opportunity with a stronger economy. Uribe has driven the narco terrorists into the jungles and even across the border into Ecuador and Venezuela. He is a strong ally. Let’s give him what he needs to finish the job.