Posted on 08/13/2007 5:24:13 PM PDT by period end of story
One issue that's going to come up this fall that you haven't heard much about is trade. Or at least I hope it's going to come up. The Bush administration has submitted four free-trade agreements for approval by Congress — with Peru, Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.
At the moment, their chances don't look very good. Democrats have taken to opposing FTAs almost unanimously. In July 2006, the House voted by only a 217-215 margin for the CAFTA, the FTA with four Central American countries, and the Dominican Republic. House Democrats voted 188-15 against, House Republicans 202-27 for. In the Senate the vote was 54-45, with Democrats voting 33-10 against and Republicans 43-12 for. Those numbers suggest that the four pending FTAs are in severe trouble unless some votes are switched.
The administration's special trade representatives, Rob Portman and then Susan Schwab, responded to the CAFTA vote by obtaining more concessions on labor and environmental standards — the reason, or pretext, many Democrats cited for voting against CAFTA. They worked closely with Charles Rangel, now Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who has looked favorably on previous FTAs and sees such agreements as a means for poorer countries to improve the lot of their people. Which of course they are.
As you learn in Economics 101, or in Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" if you want to go back farther, free trade benefits workers and consumers in both countries. Freer trade accounts for billions in improvement of the standards of living in America
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
this bothers me because free trade with columbia would reduce the power of drugs in that economy.
It would also help to reduce the sympathy for leftist politics which is sweeping latin America.
Actually the dislocation caused by trade are one of the major reasons for the rise of the left in Latin America.
The real irony of the 21st century will be that even though the West won the Cold War, it is still very possible that socialism + communism could triumph. They may be failed ideologies, but they are far from dead—especially in this country.
You know you might be right, I can’t think of another country in the entire world that is either communist or socialist.
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