Posted on 03/16/2008 12:47:42 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
The US administration on Wednesday threatened to submit a contentious free trade agreement with Colombia to Congress without the consent of the Democratic leadership in a move that would open up a new front in the fight over US trade policy.
Susan Schwab, US trade representative, told reporters that in the absence of an agreement with House Democrats, the White House would ask Congress to consider the Colombia free trade agreement “immediately or very shortly after” the Easter recess, which ends on March 30.
“We can’t let delay translate into inaction,” Ms Schwab said. The administration’s decision represents a break with the common practice in Washington of the White House and congressional leaders agreeing on the timing for the consideration of free trade agreements.
As such, it marks a high-risk, high-return strategy that will force the Democratic-led congress to take a position on a difficult issue in an election year.
While free trade agreements are unpopular in the US, with senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both criticising them on the campaign trail, the Bush administration has been highlighting the security components of the Colombia deal, portraying it as a way of bolstering President Alvaro Uribe against Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
Cool. Deficit spend, keep those money printers rolling, and outsource those jobs. Party like it’s 1929.
I thought you were in favor of “fair” trade?
Another day, another free trade pact promoted with empty promises.
Nah, fair trade keeps too many Americans employed.
Name one.
Non-answer. I’ll take that to mean that you and the other protectionists would rather keep the status quo—Colombian products enter the U.S. duty free, and our get tariffed out the wazoo.
NAFTA, for one.
Another non-answer. You guys are really on a roll!
The horse is out of the barn anyway. The midwest has already been screwed by free trade, and those jobs aren’t coming back. The result is some people made a lot of money and a lot of workers lost their jobs. And because of that, people are going to start voting for socialists, who will then take away the money made by those people who profited from it. It’s sad that people think voting for socialists will bring the jobs back.
That’s why I always thought that we should tariff their goods at the same rate they tariff ours...so we stop selling out the greenback.
Which is somewhat ironic, seeing that the socialists are the ones opposed to this deal. The Democrats, Big Labor, etc. As for the protectionists, they’re practically Demcrats anyway.
And pushing the children of people who were once Reagan democrats further and further into the leftist camp...I guess that's something the First Simpleton has never considered or regards as of no consequence.
Don't know about mysterio but my solution the problem you have mentioned here isn't to outsource our bread and butter to other countries, such as colombia, but to tax their a** as much as they tax ours. Fair trade is a farce and has brought nothing but devastation to this country, anyone who can't see that is blind, including you. Sure, you can post some phony figures that show how great Nafta and other idiotic programs are but most of the statistics are false, very similar to the phony data used to prove "global warming".
Our economy and the steady drop in real wages is the real proof. Not only that, people such as me who have lived many, many years know that the percentage of wages to prices was much better in the 50s, for instance.
You can scream and call names and do other idiotic BS but it doesn't change the facts. Nafta and other similar programs have knocked the crap out of the average person's wage to price ratio. Both people in a marriage, or just a couple living together if you will, have to work now, before the 1970s. this was not true, one person worked and the average person bought cars and houses with no problem.
This is not true now, regardless of how you want to spin it, the proof is in the pudding as they say.Free trade sucks.
And if you are in favor of raising tariffs on Colombian goods, then you are in fact arguing that the government knows how to spend your money better than yourself. There can be no other explanation why you so freely are willing to hand it over.
Which is still not as sad as people who think they can screw over their fellow citizens without any blowback. Several years ago some WSJ scribbler opined that we were living in a second Gilded Age, contentedly purring about the great wealth and lucre a few had amassed just as in the first Gilded Age yet completely ignoring the deep social problems and violence the era gave birth to.
How are you being “screwed over?”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.