Colombia free-trade agreement
Commerce secretary: Don't punish Colombia
By Pablo Bachelet, Miami Herald
Monday, September 24, 2007
U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez took aim Thursday at Democratic lawmakers who have stalled a free-trade agreement with Colombia, calling it the ``biggest foreign policy mistake that we could make in Latin America in our time.''
Gutierrez, a Cuban American who rose from driving a cereal delivery truck in Mexico City to CEO of the Kellogg Co., was the inaugural speaker at The Miami Herald Americas Conference taking place at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables Thursday and Friday.
He said Colombia was a stalwart ally that had made big gains taming violence and spurring economic growth as it maintained close relations with the United States.
''Why not help them when they're strong?'' Gutierrez asked. ``This isn't a time to punish an ally.''
The Colombia free-trade agreement is pending before Congress, along with deals with Peru, Panama and South Korea. Gutierrez is emerging as the Bush administration's most forceful public defender of the pacts, last week taking a group of nine lawmakers to Peru, Colombia and Panama.
Congress is taking up the Peruvian agreement after the administration of President Alan Garc’a agreed to changes in labor and environment regulations. Panama is also expected to pass, even though the Bush administration and many U.S. legislators are unhappy with the election of Pedro Miguel Gonz‡lez, who is wanted by the United States for the death of a U.S. soldier, as the president of the national assembly.
But Democrats are holding up Colombia, citing more than 2,100 union leaders killed since the early 1990s. They argue Colombia is not doing enough to punish the killers.
Gutierrez called the issue a ``pretext.''
He said union deaths are part of the violence that has gripped the country since the 1950s and that the situation is getting better, with terrorist attacks and kidnappings down sharply.
In a not-so-veiled reference to Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat who heads the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Gutierrez said some lawmakers want more trade with Cuba, which gives workers few freedoms.
''I find that to be a bit of a contradiction,'' he said.
Rangel has presented bills to ease travel and trade sanctions against the island, arguing they have failed to bring democratic changes on the island.
Gutierrez defended the embargo against the island as a ''resounding'' success that curtailed the global ambitions of the communist government.
''History doesn't credit us for what hasn't happened,'' he said.
He reiterated denials that the United States has military or imperial designs on Cuba, an argument the Cuban government regularly uses as a ''great excuse'' for its repressive ways.
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