Fortunately, the House has put a stop to Bush’s FTA (Free Trade Agreement) with Colombia. This is the first time the fast-track procedure gets delayed and may have as consequence that the FTA will never be capitalized if Clinton or Obama gets elected. This is also a huge blow to Bush in his struggle against Congress. He had sent this project for fast revision without the consent of the House’s leaders. The political assumption was that the House would not have the courage to stop the project since it wouldn’t want to call into question the US’s credibility in negotiating FTA’s in the future. But the House did have the courage right when Bush needs to show political authority. Congratulations to the House and shame on Bush’s political ineptness.
Friday, April 11, 2008
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2 Comments:
Matias-
I'm curious what you think of this article. Essentially, the author claims that while Colombia still has major problems, both economically and with regards to security, it has made great strides in the last 5 years and, as a more U.S. friendly country than others (Chavez being the most notable example), it should be rewarded for the progress it's made.
A lot of the data alluded to in the article come from Uribe's government itself which leaves some room for doubt. But aside from this, I'm prepared to concede that Uribe has beset some violent movements in Colombia. I think this positive for Colombia even if Uribe has done so by using violence as well. But it's not clear that Colombia's moderate success is to be attributed to Uribe. As the article points out, almost all South American countries have striven over the last decade and many of them to a higher extent than Colombia. Moreover, they've done so under less pro-US government. The question is: should the US promote peace and prosperity in South America or should it reward submission with FTAs?
First, there's the question whether the US should reward submission at all. But also, should FTAs be used for that purpose? Is this a responsible US policy? Even despite Colombia's achievement it seems to be far from meeting the conditions for being a good partner. If the US really wants to promote peace and prosperity in South America at the same time it promotes its own benefit the reasonable thing to do, on the face of the evidence, would be to reward countries such as Chile, Uruguay or Ecuador which are not particularly pro-US.
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