Obama and Uribe Talk Trade and Term Limits AS/COA Online 06/30/09

Presidents Álvaro Uribe and Barack Obama met at the White House on June 29. (AP Photos)

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe met with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama June 29 to discuss the future of the stalled free-trade agreement and Uribe’s political future. At the meeting, Obama praised Uribe’s achievements on improving security and his fight against drug cartels. The U.S. leader even joked about how difficult it would be to match Uribe’s 70 percent approval ratings after two terms in office. Still, Obama advised Uribe against running for a third consecutive presidential term and used U.S. President George Washington’s experience as an example of statesmanship: “[A]t a time when he could have stayed president for life, he made a decision that after service, he was able to step aside and return to civilian life. And that set a precedent then for the future.”

Obama’s counsel for Uribe to avoid a third term through constitutional change coincided with world attention on Honduras. A day earlier, a coup occurred in the Central American country after Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, planned to go forward with a referendum deemed illegal by the country’s main institutions. Obama expressed his support for democratically elected Zelaya and described the overthrow as “not legal.” Colombia also rejected the coup.

In Colombia, a referendum to pave the way for Uribe’s reelection still faces hurdles in Congress and already shows signs of fatigue among supporters. Cambio magazine explains that the chances to approve the legislation are slim, even with Uribe spending his political capital to move it forward. But Semana magazine says, “Uribe has radicalized his position about the referendum,” and that he sees it “as a matter of pride.”

The pending bilateral free-trade pact was also a central conversation point for the two leaders during their White House meeting. Obama offered his support for the deal but explained that concerns linger in U.S. Congress over human rights violations against Colombian labor leaders. At the summit, Uribe said that “we are very receptive to receive any advice, any suggestion that help us see how we can achieve our goals of zero human rights violations in Colombia.” After an event co-hosted by the Council of the Americas at the Wilson Center on the morning of June 30, Uribe said he had found Obama “more disposed and interested” in the trade deal. COA’s Eric Farnsworth blogs for Americas Quarterly, the two leaders’ meeting shows “that the bilateral agenda with Colombia goes well beyond passage of one agreement, as important as that is, and that the U.S.-Colombia relationship is strong and enduring.”

Learn more:

• COA Vice President Eric Farnsworth’s AQ blog post about Obama’s meetings with Uribe and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
• AS/COA coverage of Uribe’s dilemma about his second consecutive reelection.
• Americas Quarterly’s web exclusive about whether Uribe will seek reelection.
• Transcript of Obama-Uribe press conference following their June 29 meeting.
• Colombia’s constitution.
• Text of the pending U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement.
• Semana analysis of U.S.-Colombia relations.

Washington Weighs Cuba Travel Bans AS/COA Online 04/09/09

Cubans await family members arriving from Miami. (AP Photo)

Updated April 13 – A trip by seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus to Havana put U.S.-Cuban relations in the spotlight as hemispheric leaders prepared to meet at the Summit of the Americas. The delegation, led by U.S. Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), met with the Castro brothers in separate meetings, marking the first official U.S. visits since President Raúl Castro took office last year and for former President Fidel Castro since 2006.

The visit came just before as President Barack Obama turned back restrictions (read a White House fact sheet) for Cuban Americans wishing to visit or send money to family back on the island. Fulfilling a presidential campaign promise, Obama took the action before the Summit of the Americas, which runs April 17 to 19 in Trinidad and Tobago and will serve as the new president’s introduction to many Latin American leaders and, thereby, the hemisphere. Relaxing the restrictions could affect an estimated 1.5 million Americans with family members in Cuba, calculates The Wall Street Journal. El País reports that Cubans hopes to experience an increased inflow of somewhere between $300 million and $500 million as a result of the change.

The changes will also allow U.S. telecommunications firms to bid for licenses on the island as well as for a freer flow of humanitarian goods.

American legislators have gone a step further. Bipartisan proposals making their way through both houses of U.S. Congress seek to lift the travel ban for all Americans. Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Michael Enzi (R-WY) introduced the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act. A similar bill in the House drew 120 co-sponsors and calls for allowing Americans “to exercise their right to travel to Cuba.” Another House bill seeks to ease restrictions on selling agricultural products to Cuba.

Washington’s moves on Cuba could end up being a focal point at the Summit, much to the chagrin of the White House. “In a way, we believe it would be unfortunate if the principal theme of this meeting turned out to be Cuba,” says Ambassador Jeffrey Davidow, the White House advisor for the summit. Yet, as The Economist suggests in an article about the upcoming conference, the uninvited Cuba could end up being the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

Latin American leaders expressed their support to end the 47-year-old U.S. embargo in a December summit held in Brazil. “I am unable to understand the continued blockade of Cuba. It doesn’t make any sense,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Reinstatement of Cuba into the Organization of American states (Havana was suspended in 1962) could be another proposal that comes up in Port of Spain. “It has turned out that we are the isolated country,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) after returning from Cuba on Tuesday.

Some of the warm steps from Washington have drawn optimism in Havana, including from Fidel. In his weekly column, the octogenarian former leader detailed his meeting with the U.S. lawmakers and hailed the visit, making reference to the historical nature of Obama’s electoral win.

But human rights on the island remains a thorny issue, prompting criticism of the congressional delegation to Cuba. A Washington Post editorial decries that fact that lawmakers didn’t meet with political dissidents in jail or visit their families. “The black U.S. lawmakers’ concerns weren’t for the 300-plus Cuban prisoners of conscience listed by Amnesty International or the hundreds of dissidents working from their homes under the watch of a totalitarian regime,” writes Miami Herald columnist Myriam Marquez.

With all the buzz about U.S.-Cuban ties and power shifts in Havana, are changes underfoot in Cuba? As one man interviewed in Havana put it to the New York Times, “Politics here is a sport whose spectators are all blind. Everyone knows things are happening. No one is sure what. So you stop trying to watch.”

Read AS/COA analysis of the recent reshuffling of Raúl Castro’s cabinet.

Read the article as originally published at the AS/COA website.

A Tit for Tat over Trucks AS/COA Online 03/20/09

Trucks at the U.S.-Mexico border. (AP Photo)

A move by U.S. Congress to stop a cross-border trucking program drew a counterpunch from Mexico this week. The recently signed U.S. spending bill ended funding for a pilot program allowing Mexican trucks to transport cargo inside the United States and vice versa. With the program a long overdue part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexico chose to retaliate. The administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderón unveiled new tariffs for close to 90 industrial and agricultural products imported from the United States. Yet Washington announced a pair of high-profile visits to Mexico by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. President Barack Obama, opening the door to smooth the turbulence over trade and security issues.

As the tariffs were announced, Mexico’s Economy Secretary Gerardo Ruiz Mateos said that the now-suspended pilot program had been successful with no major safety incidents. He also said the cancellation of the program is “wrong, protectionist, and clearly violates the [NAFTA] treaty.” A Department of Transportation report found that Mexican truckers registered under the program met all 22 safety mandates demanded by U.S. Congress.

The duties, which went into effect on March 19, represent tariff increases of as much as 45 percent on $2.4 billion worth of exports, explains Sidney Weintraub of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in a Forbes.com editorial that breaks down the history of the trucking plan. The Mexican government carefully chose the products on the tariff list “to avoid pushing up prices of staples in Mexico while hitting goods that are important exports for a range of American states. That way, it could have maximum political effect north of the border,” The Economist explains. Wall Street Journal warns that Mexico can turn to other trading partners—Europe, Canada, and Latin America—to replace the U.S. brands. Total trade between Mexico and the United States stood at over $367 billion in 2008.

Trade and trucks are not the only matters troubling U.S.-Mexican relations at the moment. At AS/COA’s recent annual Mexico City conference, Calderón condemned remarks originating in the United States that question Mexico’s institutional strength in the face of violent organized crime. He raised concerns about U.S. drug consumption and arms smuggling and urged joint U.S.-Mexican action to fight drug cartels.

Given the tensions, the timing of the upcoming visits by Obama and Clinton could prove crucial to giving ties between the neighbors a boost. Appearing on National Public Radio’s “Diane Rehm Show,” COA’s Eric Farnsworth explained expects that this bump in trade relations won’t escalate “at a time when, I think, neither nation could afford it.”

Mexico’s El Universal takes a closer look at the trade rift and plans for Obama’s trip to Mexico in advance of April’s Summit of the Americas. Clinton’s visit next week will pave the way for Obama’s. Moreover, the appointment of former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk as the new U.S. Trade Representative gained congressional approval this week, just in time to tackle the problem. “It will be one gnarly challenge after the next for the new U.S. trade representative, starting with the trade war that erupted this week with Mexico,” says Dallas Morning News.

Some contend that killing plans for a trucking program will result in higher shipping costs. Bloomberg reports that what a truck could haul from one point in Mexico to another in the United States will take three different trucks and one extra day without the program. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that the value of goods transported by truck between both countries rose to $234 billion last year. Mexico’s decision came as the World Bank raised alarm about protectionist measures undertaken by G20 members in the midst of the global financial crisis.

AS/COA hosts a program on March 24 in advance of the Obama and Clinton visits. Learn about the event, which will involve a panel videoconferenced in New York and Washington.

Read the article as originally posted at the AS/COA website.