I think this is a good move for the President:
President Bush will announce that he is sending a controversial free trade agreement with Colombia to Congress, an administration official said today. The move will force a congressional vote within 90 days.
Democrats are opposed to the agreement on purely isolationist grounds. They’re definitely not seeing how far President Uribe has gone to beat back the drug cartels, reduce the violence that was tearing his country apart, and to bring a real chance for prosperity to his people. Uribe is no saint, but he is far close to saint than he is to being the monster that the American union lobbyists want us to believe.
Uribe’s had a tough row to hoe to get to where he has. Not only has he had to deal with the cartels but also with a terrorists group that’s been fed from outside Colombia, in particular by Hugo Chavez. Chavez does not was a prosperous and non-socialist Colombia close enough that his people can see how immense a lie his Marxism really is.
President Bush understands that in order to keep Colombia moving toward a truly liberal and prosperous existence, it’s going to need to provide a better option than the cartels and Marxism. An infusion of American money and business provides that option. He also realizes that reduced cartels means fewer illegal drugs get shipped to our neighborhoods and schools. That’s a bonus for both countries.
Democrats, who used to care about the weak and oppressed in the world, should be on board with the President’s free trade proposal. It seems, though, that they’ve fallen too far under the sway of their own personal political power and the whining of domestic lobbyists.
