Conservative supermarket tycoon Ricardo Martinelli resoundingly won Panama’s presidential election Sunday with more than 60% of the vote. Already Martinelli is pushing for a free trade deal with the United States. Heritage fellow Ray Walser puts the victory in context: The Martinelli victory breaks the Latin Left’s 2009 electoral winning streak of Venezuela, El Salvador, and Ecuador. The average voter in Panama is betting on a dynamic and productive relationship with the U.S. and has demonstrated confidence in continued strong ties between the two nations. It is incumbent on the …
Barack Obama has frequently called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) “a bad deal.” During one Democratic primary debate, Obama even said he would unilaterally “use the hammer of a potential opt-out” to “renegotiate” the entire treaty. But after he secured the nomination, Obama changed his tune, admitting that NAFTA was not so bad after all, and telling Nina Easton: “Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified.” If you find Obama’s rhetoric on trade inconsistent, do not expect to learn much from his voting record either. He …
In his final State of the Union address, the President not only raised the politically contentious issue of making tangible progress on advancing pending free trade initiatives, but also highlighted the importance of freer trade in helping America weather today’s economic turbulence and in promoting American competitiveness in the future. Identified as a top priority, U.S. leadership in concluding the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations in the World Trade Organization this year would – of all that remains on the free trade agenda – go the farthest toward allowing …
The President made a good case for congressional approval of the three pending trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama and their nearly 100 million customers. It was smart to frame the issue in terms of the many benefits these agreements will give to American workers “to compete with anyone in the world and empower them by opening up new markets overseas … [for] products ‘Made in the USA,’” as the President said. Especially with the economic uncertainty today, Bush underscored the urgent need for Congress to focus on …
