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Rice defends free trade pacts with Latam countries

Wednesday, October 10th 2007 - 21:00 UTC
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Rice says trade deals support democracies in the region Rice says trade deals support democracies in the region

United States Congress would deliver a “great blow” to Peru, Panama and Colombia, as well as damage U.S. interests in Latin America, if it fails to pass free-trade agreements with the three countries, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday.

"It would send a loud and clear message across the region that the United States cannot be trusted to keep its promises" Rice said in a speech on U.S. trade relations with Latin America at the Organization of American States. Rice's speech came as the White House is gearing up efforts to win approval of the free-trade pacts. Congress could pass the Peru agreement in coming weeks but the other two deals face significant obstacles. "Failure to conclude these agreements would be a great blow to these three countries, from which one can not assume there would be easy recovery" and would also send the wrong message "to the enemies of democracy in our hemisphere," she said, in an apparent reference to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Rice urged Congress to take up the Colombia agreement after it finishes Peru and approve both pacts before current U.S. trade benefits for the Andean region expire in February. U.S. labor groups fiercely oppose the agreement with Colombia, which they call the most dangerous country in the world for union workers. They accuse the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of not aggressively prosecuting hundreds of cases of murdered trade unionists. In June, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders said they could not support the Colombia deal until they saw "concrete evidence" of a sustained effort to reduce violence and put murderers in jail. Rice argued Colombia's transformation under Uribe from a state "devastated by narco-terrorism" and vicious militia fighting was already a great victory for human rights. "I think you only have to look at the record of what Colombia has done. This was as close to a failed state as you could get in 2000, 2001," Rice said told reporters later. "I don't know at this particular stage how much more evidence you need of a committed democratic government." Rice cast all three agreements as part of long-term bipartisan U.S. efforts to promote democracy and prosperity in Latin America, and warned failing to approve the agreements would diminish U.S. influence there. President George W. Bush is expected to continue the push for the free-trade pacts in a speech in Miami on Friday. U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez also is leading a second delegation of U.S. lawmakers to Colombia this weekend in hopes of building more support for the agreement. Pelosi and House Democrats indicated in June that Congress could approve the agreement with Panama after the Peru pact.

Categories: Politics, United States.

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