Colombia Trade Deal Splits Clintons

[democracy1st]

:wtf:



Colombia Trade Deal Splits Clintons By CHARLES BABINGTON

WASHINGTON (AP) — The presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that her husband, the former president, supports a free trade agreement with Colombia that she strenuously opposes.

The acknowledgment adds new hurdles to the New York senator's bid to woo Democratic voters in Pennsylvania and elsewhere who believe free trade agreements have eliminated thousands of U.S. jobs. On Sunday, she demoted her chief campaign strategist for his role in promoting the Colombia pact.

Hillary Clinton told union activists Tuesday she would do everything in her power to defeat the Colombia Free Trade Agreement now before Congress.

Bill Clinton has been his wife's most prominent campaign surrogate and advocate for months.

A high point of his presidency was passage of the North America Free Trade Agreement, which his wife now criticizes at virtually every campaign stop. White House records show that as first lady Hillary Clinton attended several meetings designed to build congressional support for NAFTA in the early 1990s. She says she had reservations about the pact at the time, and made her feelings known in such gatherings.

Speaking about the Colombia trade deal Tuesday to a meeting of the Communication Workers of America, she said: "As I have said for months, I oppose the deal, I have spoken out against the deal, I will vote against the deal and I will do everything I can to urge the Congress to reject the Colombia free trade agreement."

On Sunday, Mark Penn left his post as top strategist for Clinton's campaign after it was reported that he had met with Colombia's ambassador to the United States to discuss passage of the agreement. Colombia was a client of Penn's large public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller.

Many labor unions, including the CWA, oppose such trade deals, saying they displace U.S. jobs and encourage abuses of workers and the environment in other countries.

As president, Bill Clinton's support of trade agreements with Mexico, Canada, China and other nations often put him at odds with fellow Democrats and labor leaders who backed a more protectionist approach. Clinton argued that Democrats should support lower barriers to trade because the nation, on balance, would benefit.

Many nonpartisan economists agree.

In 2005, the former president was paid $800,000 by Gold Service International, a Bogota-based business development group, for four days of appearances in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. The group supports, among other things, the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.


President Bush on Monday sent the proposed Colombia deal to Congress, which has 90 days to ratify or reject it. The administration says it would help the United States by eliminating high barriers for U.S. exports to Colombia. Most Colombian products enter the United States duty free under existing trade preference laws, the administration says.

Teamsters President James Hoffa called on Clinton to cut all ties with Penn, who continues to advise her campaign.

"This latest issue with Mark Penn really hurts her credibility," especially on trade issues, said Hoffa, who supports Obama.




http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jgTupmKfKbwd5BiA8L-IGzDkmnlAD8VTVRCO0

[Deep13]

1. How does this hurt her? It shows she is not Bill's puppet. nt

[sasquatch]

4. But that was apart of her appeal, people saw her as being his identical twin

Sort of like George W Bush, except less evil and competent.

[sasquatch]

2. Somebody needs to sit Bill down and esplain to him that "Free Trade" isn't a good thing

I know he used to read Quigley when he was in college so he for some reason thinks corporatist trade policies will maintain expansion and creation, but it's not necissarily true.

[Life Long Dem]

3. A union buster does not belong in the Democratic party.

Hillary worked with Penn for more than 10 years.

[damntexdem]

5. Yeah, but what's Chelsea's position on the deal?

Since she's out there campaigning, she surely must have one.

;-)

[DCKit]

6. Guess Bill's not as smart as we thought.

This FTA is political poison right now and he shouldn't even be talking about it. Is he secretly supporting Obama? He's sure not doing Hillary any favors.

[PetraPooh]

7. I don't believe they are split; I think she is just mouthing what she thinks will win her points...

Why don't I believe her? (besides her proven tendency to lie) Because if she was truly against it, she wouldn't have had Mark Penn on her staff and/or she would've insisted that he remove himself from his conflicted position with the Columbians. Remember he didn't just work at a company that was assisting Columbia get this trade deal; he actually was in Columbia on March 30th working on the deal. She's lying, she and Bill are exactly on the same page regarding Columbia.


Here's an interesting article explaining numerous reasons why its a bad idea for USA and for Columbia.

http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersComService4/idUSDIS95196720080409

Comment: Congress is right to oppose trade deal with Colombia
<snip> According to new estimates by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, the net benefits of the agreement to the U.S. will be a miniscule 0.0000472 percent of GDP or a one-time increase in the level of each American's income by just over one penny. The agreement will actually will make Colombia worse off by up to $75 million or one tenth of one percent of its GDP; losses to Colombia's textiles, apparel, food and heavy manufacturing industries, as they face new competition from U.S. import, will outweigh the gains in Colombian petroleum, mining, and other export sectors, it concludes.

Nor is it clear that the agreement will bring foreign investment to Colombia. The World Bank's 2005 Global Economic Prospects report warned that trade and investment agreements themselves would not necessarily translate into new foreign investment. This conclusion was based on a study they commissioned that examined the experience of twenty developing countries between 1980 and 2000 to determine whether agreements that provided assurances to foreign investors did indeed attract investors. More recent studies have similar findings for Latin America. Articles in peer-reviewed journals Latin American Research Review and Journal of World Investment and Trade found no independent correlation between foreign trade or investment agreements and increases in foreign investment in the region.<snip>

[samsingh]

8. i don't understand what's happening here

[Life Long Dem]

9. The Clinton's have a joint bank account.

Bill's deals along with Hilliary's deals go into the same bank account. After 10 years with Penn, she should disown this union buster and Penn should be kicked out of the Democratic party. There is no place for a union buster in the Democratic party.