Paid for by NDN.
New Dem Group Sees Bush Using Colombia FTA To Get Florida Votes
Inside US Trade
Date: April 11, 2008
The president of NDN, formerly the New Democrat Network, this week said President Bush’s decision to unilaterally submit the Colombia free trade agreement to Congress was based on presidential election strategy, rather than a sincere desire to implement the FTA. NDN President Simon Rosenberg wrote in an April 7 letter to Bush that “there can only be one plausible explanation” for the decision, which is to capture “tens of thousands of votes of Colombian-Americans in South Florida” for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in the presidential election.
In an April 9 interview with Inside U.S. Trade, Rosenberg said roughly 110,000 Colombian-Americans live in South Florida, a predominantly Democratic bloc that could swing by as many as 30,000 in McCain’s favor if Bush managed to get a vote on the FTA before the November election.
To resolve the issue, Rosenberg stressed it is important for Democrats to deliver the message to Colombia as well as the Colombian-American population in Florida that the rejection of the FTA is a rejection of Bush, rather than Colombia or the Latin American community. He said Democrats should also explain to Colombian-Americans in Florida that the Democrats’ proposed expansion of Trade Adjustment Assistance is not in itself sufficient to dislodge the FTA, and that the U.S. government must also act to address economic challenges that middle-class families face due to globalization.
“It is simply irresponsible to let this important agreement collapse out of hope for a political advantage in a pivotal Presidential state this fall,” Rosenberg wrote in the letter. “[O]nce again you have chosen your party’s interest over the interests of the nation itself.”
Rosenberg charged that the Bush administration “has not done what is required to pass this important agreement,” in the letter. “Congressional leaders have told you the Agreement will fail if introduced,” he said.
He said in the letter that “if this agreement fails the fault will be yours, and the nation will be able to add gross mismanagement of our global trade portfolio and a more unstable Latin America to your already terribly disappointing economic and national security legacy.”
In another possible sign of the importance of the FTA to the area, staff of South Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), a New Democrat, met this week with pro-FTA union leaders from Colombia, according to the Colombia embassy. Wasserman Schultz, however, voted with the Democratic majority on April 10 to change the fast-track rules, postponing indefinitely a vote on the Colombia FTA.
NDN is a progressive non-profit think tank whose views largely reflect those of the pro-trade New Democrats in Congress, though there is no formal connection with the membership.
