US trade chief urges Congress to ratify pact with Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Source: AFP

US trade chief urges Congress to ratify pact with Colombia
6 hours ago

MIAMI (AFP) — US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez on Thursday urged Congress to ratify a free trade agreement with Colombia, saying that not doing so would be a major foreign policy mistake.

Speaking at a forum in Miami, Gutierrez said failure to ratify the bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) "would confuse our friends and make our enemies very happy."

"It would probably be one of the biggest foreign policy mistakes we could make in Latin America in our time," the official said at the Miami Herald's annual Americas Conference.

Washington and Bogota signed the agreement in December, but it has yet to be ratified by Congress, where Democrats have expressed concerns over claims that officials close to President Alvaro Uribe had links to a right-wing paramilitary group that figures on a US list of terrorist organizations.



Read more: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVcfNJZrLTC2hheKuPWvE8T1_RQA

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Wikipedia:
Carlos Miguel Gutierrez (originally Gutiérrez) (born November 4, 1953) is the 35th U.S. Secretary of Commerce, succeeding Donald Evans. Gutierrez is a former Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Kellogg Company.

Gutierrez was born in Havana, Cuba, the son of a pineapple plantation owner. Faced with the expropriation of their property following the Cuban Revolution, his family fled for the United States in 1960 when he was six years old. Like many other Cuban American refugees, they settled in Miami. Gutierrez learned his first words of English from the bellhop at the hotel where they initially stayed and, some years later, he and his family acquired United States citizenship.
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He rose through the management ranks, and in January 1990, he was promoted to corporate vice president of product development at the company's headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan, and in July of the same year, he became executive vice president of Kellogg USA. In January 1999, he was elected to the company's Board of Directors and by April, he was appointed president and CEO.
(snip/...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Gutierrez

[Judi Lynn]

1. Don't punish ally Colombia, U.S. commerce chief says

Don't punish ally Colombia, U.S. commerce chief says
By Jane Sutton
Sep 20, 2007

Share CORAL GABLES, Florida (Reuters) - Rejecting a free trade deal with Colombia would punish an ally who has clung to democracy while making great strides against violence and drug trafficking, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said on Thursday.

"Why not help them when they are strong? This isn't a time to punish an ally," Gutierrez said at a Latin American conference sponsored by The Miami Herald.

"We think that would confuse our friends and make our enemies very happy. It would probably be one of the biggest foreign policy mistakes we could make in Latin America in our time."

Gutierrez's remarks were aimed at U.S. Congressional Democrats who have opposed a free trade deal with Colombia because of concerns over anti-union violence and extrajudicial killings by illegal paramilitaries.

More:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3629172