The Colombian government said a proposed US trade deal will grow its economy by 1 percent and it hopes the pact can create new markets, while critics said the deal could lead to bigger cocaine crops.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe thanked US President George W. Bush on Monday for sending the trade pact to Congress and said he hoped for “a grand bipartisan agreement” to approve the deal.
“I want this message to get to the US Congress: I beg you to look at the current problems [in Colombia] and the favorable evolution that Colombia has experienced,” Uribe told reporters.
Since taking office in 2002, Uribe has demobilized many of the paramilitaries under an amnesty program and gone on the offensive against leftist rebels, sharply lowering levels of kidnapping and murder.
But the nation’s trade unions and other critics see the opposite scenario if the US Congress approves the deal — the loss of millions of jobs and an economic downturn that could drive even more farmers into the cocaine trade.
The number of labor activists who have been killed has declined since 2002, but the unions say Uribe’s administration has encouraged assassinations of trade unionists who cause problems for companies.
“It tries to stigmatize us, it tries to paint us as rebels and that’s when the right-wing death squads try to kill us,” said Fabio Arias, vice president of Colombia’s largest trade union federation.
“These death squads still work with parts of the military and police to kill trade union members in Colombia,” he said.
Arias estimates 3.5 million Colombians would be put out of work — especially producers of poultry, corn, clothing and furniture — as tariff-free US imports flood the market and companies use the language of the accord to more easily fire workers.
Colombia’s Treasury Minister Oscar Ivan Zuluaga predicts an entirely different scenario — economic growth of more than 1 percent thanks to locked-in terms for exports of Colombian clothing, flowers, textiles and other products, which already get preferential US treatment under the Andean Trade Preference Act, which is a temporary measure.
Permanently eliminating tariffs on Colombian goods would also create more viable alternatives for farmers who often resort to growing coca — the main ingredient of cocaine — because they lack markets for legal products, the Colombian government says.
But Adam Isacson, a Colombia expert with the Center for International Policy in Washington, warned that the pact may have a reverse effect because it could jeopardize farmers in Colombia who grow legitimate crops, forcing some of them to grow coca.
Bush said failure to approve the deal would encourage Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s anti-US regime and cast the US as untrustworthy in a region where Uribe is the Bush administration’s strongest ally.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS