Free Trade In Peril

Filed under: Americas ~ Economics

Three U.S. free trade pacts are about to go down in flames.

Colombia, Peru and Panama, three friendly countries, are about to see the door slammed shut on them by a lunatic U.S. Congress, whose idiots extend to both sides of the aisles.

For Long Beach, whose Press-Telegram reported the story, billions of dollars of trade income is about to be thrown into the dumpster. They might as well take a few warehouses every day and burn them, because that illlustrates the kind of money they are going to throw away. As for the poor black kids in the Long Beach area who have nothing but drugs and gangs in front of them, and no longer any port job opportunities, well, too bad. Democrats (it's mostly them) have better things to do than provide jobs for them.

Like insult our friends.

And what good friends they are indeed. Colombia, Panama, and Peru are at the forefront of defying the leftist push of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. All three have stood up to him on multiple fronts. It's not just in public forums but in what they are doing. They are defying conventional wisdom about free markets in Latin America and engaging them. That, instead of crony porkbarrel handouts. They also have the highest pro-American sentiment in the region, which is otherwise full of anti-Americanism. Panama's is the highest in all Latin America.

What does this say about us that we would throw out our money and screw our allies? It is O-U-T-R-A-G-E-O-U-S!

And that's not the only outrage. In the absence of a free trade pact, these economies will not just sit there. They can go two ways. One is to move closer to Hugo Chavez, who is offering his 'ALBA' Latins-only free trade pact as an alternative to any trade with America. Won't that be nice to see them move to that circle instead of ours, because they cannot get free trade?

Two is that they will move closer to Red China. They won't be able to sell anything here and they won't be able to buy any American goods, so what's left is China's goods. They'll buy from China and move into China's orbit, their interests fully aligned and set in that direction.

Meanwhile, instead of being able to buy from our choice of Peruvian, Panamanian, Colombian, or Chinese goods, and pick the best prices, we will be stuck buying just from China, Made In China, that's all we'll get.

In both cases, China makes out like a bandit.

And our good and noble friends in Panama, Peru and Colombia, will be stuck on the outside, forever looking in.

This is insanity.