On Wednesday, Ambassador Charles Shapiro who leads the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs’ Task Force for the Free Trade Agreements with Peru, Colombia and Panama held a blogger conference call on the latest developments with the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
As you already know from numerous postings here on this blog, Speaker Nancy Pelosi took unprecedented action this year to block this free trade agreement. The House Speaker of the most unpopular Congress on record has refused to allow a vote on the CFTA until progress is made addressing the violence against Far Left and communist unionists in Colombia.
However, the popular Uribe government has already made significant progress in cracking down on violence and murder against unionists in Colombia:
Since pro-American President Alvaro Uribe has been in office Colombian homicides are down by 40%, kidnappings are down by 83% and terrorist attacks are down by 76%.
But, this is not good enough for Nancy Pelosi and Congressional Democrats??? (WSJ and White House)
Since 2002, homicides of trade unionists has fallen between 80% and 86%. (White House)
On Wednesday, Ambassador Charles Shapiro answered questions on this Colombia trade agreement.
Fausta has a transcript of the discussion.
It was a great discussion with Monica Showater and representatives from RedState and Real Clear Politics joining in.
I would recommend taking the time to review how the Democratic Congress is hurting our great ally in South America.
(Also, it should be noted, Ambassador Shapiro was very balanced and non-blaming in his analysis that he shared with us during the conversation.)