Colombian President Alvaro Uribe harshly criticized presidential contender Barack Obama over the senator’s opposition to a free trade pact with Colombia. Uribe “deplored” Obama’s viewpoint which he claimed was said “without knowing all the information about Colombia.” Yesterday Obama said the following:
"I will oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement if President Bush insists on sending it to Congress because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements," Obama said Wednesday at a meeting of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO in Philadelphia.
U.S. President George W. Bush has tried to push approval of the free trade pact with Colombia by claiming that not doing so would lead to more Chavez-style populism in Latin America. (A view which according to one analyst is “specious, misleading and cynical.”)
Uribe’s declarations have not been the only time he has butted heads with U.S. politicos over free trade; last year, he condemned Democrats for treating Colombia “like a pariah.”
Sources (English)- Los Angeles Times, The Latin Americanist, Plan Colombia and Beyond, Washington Wire
Sources (Spanish)- El Tiempo
Image- Canada.com
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ReplyDeleteObama doesn´t has the most remote idea of how things are here in Colombia. We had lived here for many years of promisses and dialogs that never worked, since Uribe is our president things had improved here. Definitly Obama was not the best election for Colombia. If he is not gonna help us, then either judge us, It´s time for him to mind his own buisness.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you mind your own business, Patricia if that is your real name.
ReplyDeleteAnd stop using US Federal troops to spy on me, for knowing Tomas back in 97.
The Uribe's have made my life a living hell.
I wouldn't mind adding a few charges, maybe dropping them.