U.S. pushing Colombian trade deal

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

U.S. pushing Colombian trade deal
The U.S. is stepping up its effort to convince members of Congress to support a trade agreement with Colombia.
Posted on Sun, Oct. 07, 2007Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY PABLO BACHELET
[e-mail]

WASHINGTON -- With little to show after months of lobbying by Colombian and U.S. officials, the Bush administration is trying a new way to sell a controversial free trade agreement with Bogotá.
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In the coming months, top Bush administration officials will escort at least half a dozen congressional delegations to Colombia in the hope that lawmakers will like what they see and vote ''yea'' on the agreement.
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The administration also is stepping up the more traditional forms of persuasion on the free trade pact: trips to Capitol Hill by Cabinet members and a barrage of public appearances by senior officials touting Colombia. President Bush will do it in Miami next Friday and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will speak on the subject in Washington Tuesday.

But all efforts have met resistance from members of Congress, most of them Democrats, who argue that the Uribe government has done too little to catch and prosecute rights violators.

UNION CONCERNS

The AFL-CIO, which provides money and campaign volunteers for many political candidates, is especially concerned about the murders of scores of union leaders, most of them by right-wing paramilitary fighters.






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