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The Columbian Free Trade Agreement vs. the Democrats’ Anti-American Partisan Politics

Colombia Tariff Ticker

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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.