Obama meets Santos following unconclusive Summit <http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/23429-obama-meets-santos-following-unconclusive-summit.html> Sunday, 15 April 2012 13:49 Adriaan Alsema <http://digg.com/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcolombiareports.com%2Fcolombia-news%2Fnews%2F23429-obama-meets-santos-following-unconclusive-summit.html&title=Obama%20meets%20Santos%20following%20unconclusive%20Summit>
[image: Colombia news - Obama Santos] U.S. President Barack Obama met with his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos Sunday following the 6th Summit of the Americas held in the coastal city of Cartagena<http://colombiareports.com/travel-in-colombia/cartagena.html> . The official bilateral meeting followed a secretive summit in which the U.S. and Canada found strong opposition from Latin American countries regarding the North American countries' stance on drug trafficking, the Falkland islands and Cuba. In his opening speech of the summit, Santos rejected the U.S. embargo on Cuba<http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/23428-santos-criticizes-embargo-against-cuba.html>, a stance that found substantial support among his Latin American colleagues. "All the countries here in Latin American and the Caribbean want Cuba to be present. But the United States won't accept," President Evo Morales of Bolivia told reporters late Saturday. "It's like a dictatorship." Nevertheless, Cuba was not on Obama's agenda when meeting with the leaders of Guatemala, El Salvador, Argentina and Peru. Because of a "lack of concensus," on the divisive issues, the summit was ended without a joint declaration. Hours before Obama and Santos entered their meeting, the White House announced that the free trade pact between the two countries will take effect in May<http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/economy/23430-us-colombia-trade-deal-to-be-in-place-in-may.html> . -------------------- *You are here:* News <http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news.html> Economy <http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/economy.html> US, Colombia trade deal to be in place in May - Skip to content<http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/economy/23430-us-colombia-trade-deal-to-be-in-place-in-may.html#ja-content> US, Colombia trade deal to be in place in May <http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/economy/23430-us-colombia-trade-deal-to-be-in-place-in-may.html> Sunday, 15 April 2012 14:07 The Associated Press Tags: - Economy <http://colombiareports.com/component/tag/economy.html> - Fta <http://colombiareports.com/component/tag/fta.html> - Trade <http://colombiareports.com/component/tag/trade.html> - United States<http://colombiareports.com/component/tag/united-states.html> <http://digg.com/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcolombiareports.com%2Fcolombia-news%2Feconomy%2F23430-us-colombia-trade-deal-to-be-in-place-in-may.html&title=US,%20Colombia%20trade%20deal%20to%20be%20in%20place%20in%20May> [image: Ron Kirk] The Obama administration said Sunday that a key free trade deal with Colombia <http://colombiareports.com/> will be fully enforced next month, an expected but important victory for the U.S. business community, which contends the pact will be an economic boon for America. Labor union officials, a key constituency for Obama, said they were disappointed by the agreement. Obama officials insisted they moved ahead only after the Colombia took steps to halt deadly violence against labor unionists. President Barack Obama and Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos<http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/profiles/9075-profile-juan-manuel-santos.html>were expected to hail the agreement at an afternoon news conference. For Obama, it amounted to a chance to shift some focus back to his original mission in Latin America creating jobs back home amid the distraction of a Secret Service scandal involving prostitutes that all unfolded before Obama arrived. The news of the trade-deal implementation came as Obama huddled with about three dozen regional leaders in hot and steamy Cartagena<http://colombiareports.com/travel-in-colombia/cartagena.html>as the Summit of the Americas drew to a close. Throughout his trip, Obama has touted Latin America as a growth region for U.S. businesses in an election-year economic appeal aimed at voters back home. U.S. unions have opposed the trade deal, saying Colombia still has an abysmal record of violence against labor leaders. Union workers are a core Obama constituency, but have opposed some of his efforts to expand free trade deals, which they believe take jobs away from U.S. companies. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the announcement was "deeply disappointing and troubling" and accused the administration of placing "commercial interests above the interests of workers and their trade unions." Dan Kovalik, a lawyer with the United Steelworkers, said the announcement was "premature in light of the continued violence against unionists and human rights defenders in Colombia." Under the terms of the trade pact, more than 80 percent of industrial and manufactured products exported from the U.S. and Colombia will immediately become duty free, making it cheaper for American businesses to sell their goods to the South American country. More than half of U.S. agriculture exports to Colombia will also become duty free. In a conference call with reporters, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said Colombia has taken a number of important steps to implement the "labor action plan" that was a prerequisite for putting the trade deal into place. The plan included enforcing laws recognizing the rights of workers to organize and prosecuting past cases of violence against labor leaders. "We believe this is an historic step in the development of our relationship with Colombia," Kirk said Colombian labor activists complain the Labor Action Plan has been a fig leaf that has not done enough to protect trade unionists in the world's most dangerous country for labor organizing. At least 30 trade unionists were killed in Colombia last year and four so far this year, according to Viviana Colorado of Colombia's National Union School, which tracks the figures. That is down from 51 killed in 2010. In October, on the eve of U.S. congressional approval of the trade pact, Human Rights Watch released a study refuting claims by the Obama administration that Colombia is making important strides in bringing to justice killers of labor activists. The study found "virtually no progress" in getting convictions for killings that have occurred in the past 4 1/2 years. At the news conference, Obama could also face his first questions Sunday about embarrassing allegations of Secret Service personnel cavorting with prostitutes in Cartagena ahead of the president's arrival. The scandal has cast a cloud over the U.S. delegation at the summit, forcing the White House to assert that Obama still has confidence in the agency that protects his life and the Secret Service to offer its regrets for distracting from the summit. Meanwhile, some of Obama's peers from Central and South America pushed talks on drug legalization, which they believe could help tamp down rampant cartel violence in the region. Decriminalization would be politically unpalatable in the U.S., and Obama has made his opposition known. Also competing for attention Sunday were widespread demands for the summit's final declaration to specifying that Cuba be included in future hemispheric meetings. The U.S., along with Canada, was staunchly opposed, with officials insisting that communist-run Cuba does meet the summit's democratic standards. By now, Obama may be used to his foreign trips getting overshadowed by unexpected distractions. In the past year alone in travels to Latin America, to an economic summit in Cannes, France, to Seoul, South Korea and now in Cartagena Obama's intended message has been sidetracked, interrupted or even buried by bad timing, miscues or, in the case of the allegations in Colombia, outright scandal. Eleven Secret Service employees were on administrative leave for misconduct<http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/23427-obama-secret-service-agents-sent-home-for-misconduct.html>and five service members assigned to work with the Secret Service were confined to quarters amid allegations involving prostitutes and heavy drinking. The Secret Service and the U.S. Southern Command said the misconduct occurred at their hotel <http://www.hotelsincolombia.eu/> in Cartagena before Obama arrived in the Caribbean city on Friday. Waiters interviewed by The Associated Press described the agents as drinking heavily during their stay. For Obama, this scandal is particularly piercing because it goes against type. When his trip to Brazil and Chile in March 2011 was overwhelmed by U.S. bombing over Libya, it displayed strength even as he carried out a military act from abroad. A live microphone in Cannes captured him and French President Nicholas Sarkozy discussing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Sarkozy confiding he couldn't stand working with the Israeli leader. But while briefly embarrassing it wasn't wholly revelatory. ------------------------------ *Latin America rebels against US over Cuba * [image: President Barack Obama arrives at the convention center, where the Americas Summit is being held, in Cartagena April 14, 2012. Heads of state are meeting here from April 14-15. REUTERS-Ricardo Moraes]<http://www.reuters.com/article/slideshow/idUSBRE83D0E220120415#a=1> [image: President Barack Obama (R) places his hand over the hands of Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner during a bilateral meeting at the Americas Summit in Cartagena April 14, 2012. Heads of state are meeting here in the city from April 14-15. REUTERS-Argentine Presidency-Handout]<http://www.reuters.com/article/slideshow/idUSBRE83D0E220120415#a=2> [image: President Barack Obama waves as he arrives at the convention center, where the Americas Summit is being held, in Cartagena April 14, 2012. Heads of state are meeting here from April 14-15. REUTERS-Chris Wattie (COLOMBIA - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS)]<http://www.reuters.com/article/slideshow/idUSBRE83D0E220120415#a=9> 1 of 9. President Barack Obama arrives at the convention center, where the Americas Summit is being held, in Cartagena April 14, 2012. Heads of state are meeting here from April 14-15. Credit: Reuters/Ricardo Moraes By Andrew Cawthorne<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=andrew.cawthorne&;>and Brian Ellsworth CARTAGENA, Colombia | Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:51pm EDT CARTAGENA, Colombia (Reuters) - Unprecedented Latin American opposition to sanctions on communist Cuba <http://www.reuters.com/places/cuba> put more pressure on President Barack Obama at the Summit of the Americas on Sunday and threatened to further weaken U.S. influence in the region. In contrast to the rock-star status he enjoyed at the 2009 summit in Trinidad and Tobago shortly after taking office, Obama has had a bruising time at the two-day hemispheric meeting of some 30 heads of state in Colombia. Sixteen U.S. security personnel were caught in an embarrassing prostitution scandal, Brazil <http://www.reuters.com/places/brazil> and others have bashed Obama over monetary expansionism, and he has been on the defensive over calls to legalize drugs. The prostitution saga, above all, was a major blow to the prestige of Obama's Secret Service bodyguards and turned into the unexpected talk of the town in historic Cartagena. "Someone who's charged with looking after the security of the most important president in the world cannot commit the mistake of getting mixed up with a prostitute," said Cartagena tourist guide Rodolfo Galvis, 60. "This has damaged the image of the Secret Service, not Colombia." Eleven agents from the Service were sent home and five military servicemen grounded after trying to take at least one prostitute back to their hotel the day before Obama arrived. A local policeman told Reuters the affair came to a head when hotel staff tried to register a prostitute at the front desk, but agents refused and waved their ID cards. An investigation is underway in the United States. DECADES-OLD DISPUTE For the first time, conservative U.S-allied nations like Colombia are throwing their weight behind the traditional demand of leftist governments that Cuba be in the next meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS). Diplomats said the dispute could block the final declaration planned for Sunday at the closing of the meeting, and originally intended as a show of unity. "The isolation, the embargo, the indifference, looking the other way, have been ineffective," summit host and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said of the Cuba issue. A major U.S. ally in the region who has relied on Washington for financial and military help to fight guerrillas and drug traffickers, Santos has become vocal over Cuba despite his strong ideological differences with Havana. In an ironic twist, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went dancing after midnight on Sunday at a Cartagena bar called "Cafe Havana" where Cuban music is played. Havana was kicked out of the OAS a few years after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, and has been excluded from its summits due to opposition from the United States and Canada. Latin Americans also oppose Washington's trade embargo on the island. "There will be no final declaration of the summit because the United States vetoed the articles about Cuba, a veto that Canada joined," said Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman. "In consequence, there was no consensus." Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, who has insisted Washington recognize its claim to the Falkland Islands controlled by Britain, left the summit on Sunday morning, before its official closure. BOYCOTT Ecuador's President Rafael Correa boycotted the meeting over Cuba, and fellow leftist Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua also stayed at home. The leftist ALBA bloc of nations - including Venezuela<http://www.reuters.com/places/venezuela>, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and some Caribbean nations - said they will not attend future summits without Cuba's presence. "It's not a favor anyone would be doing to Cuba. It's a right they've had taken away from them," Ortega said from Managua. "At this meeting in Cartagena, I think it's time for the U.S. government, all President Obama's advisors, to listen to all the Latin American nations." Though there were widespread hopes for a rapprochement with Cuba under Obama when he took office, Washington has done little beyond ease some travel restrictions, saying democratic changes must come on the island before any further steps can be taken. Obama has not spoken of Cuba in Colombia, though he did complain that Cold War-era issues, some dating from before his birth, were hindering perspectives on regional integration. "Sometimes I feel as if in some of these discussions, or at least the press reports, we're caught in a time warp, going back to the 1950s and gunboat diplomacy and Yankees and the Cold War, and this and that and the other," the 50-year-old Obama said. "That's not the world we live in today." The controversy at the summit added to strain on the Washington-dominated system of hemispheric diplomacy that was built around the OAS but is struggling to evolve with changes in the region. "I'm not sure the next summit will even be possible," said Colombian politician and former presidential candidate Carlos Gaviria. Regional economic powerhouse Brazil has led criticism at the summit of U.S. and other rich nations' expansionist monetary policy that is sending a flood of funds into developing nations, forcing up local currencies<http://www.reuters.com/finance/currency>and hurting competitiveness. She called it a "monetary tsunami" that Latin American nations had the right to defend themselves from. Cheering the mood a bit, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced that a U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement will come into force in the middle of May. With a presidential election looming, Obama has portrayed his visit to the summit as a way to generate jobs at home by boosting trade with the region. (Additional reporting by Mario Naranjo, Luis Jaime Acosta, Arshad Mohammed<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=arshad.mohammed&;>, Helen Murphy and Pablo Garibian<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=pablo.garibian&;>in Cartagena, Ivan Castro in Managua; Editing by Daniel Wallis<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=daniel.wallis&;>and Sandra Maler<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=sandra.maler&;> ) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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