Hillary Clinton Pushes Colombia Free Trade Agreement In Latest Email Dump

[Purveyor]

Source: International Business Times

On the eve of South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary, the U.S. State Department released 1,500 pages of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails from her tenure as secretary of state. Included in the 881 emails published Friday night are messages highlighting Clinton lobbying for a controversial Colombian trade deal she previously pledged to oppose.

During her 2008 presidential run, Clinton said she opposed the deal because “I am very concerned about the history of violence against trade unionists in Colombia.” She later declared, “I oppose the deal. I have spoken out against the deal, I will vote against the deal, and I will do everything I can to urge the Congress to reject the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.”

But newly released emails show that as secretary of state, Clinton was personally lobbying Democratic members of Congress to support the deal, even promising one senior lawmaker that the deal would extend labor protections to Colombian workers that would be as good or better than those enjoyed by many workers in the United States.

One of the 2011 emails from Clinton to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Clinton aide Robert Hormats has a subject line “Sandy Levin” — a reference to the Democratic congressman who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees U.S. trade policy. In the email detailing her call with Levin, she said the Michigan lawmaker “appreciates the changes that have been made, the national security arguments and Santos's reforms” -- the latter presumably a reference to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. She concludes the message about the call with Levin by saying, “I told him that at the rate we were going, Columbian [sic] workers were going to end up w the same or better rights than workers in Wisconsin and Indiana and, maybe even, Michigan.”

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/hillary-clinton-pushes-colombia-free-trade-agreement-latest-email-dump-2326068

[6chars]

1. I hadn't realized this from the article

"under the terms of a court order earlier this month, the department is required to publish the last of the 35,000 emails Monday, just one day before the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses. In order to meet the deadline, federal officials have planned to work through the weekend."

Wow.

[yourout]

2. Hillary is to the right of Trump when it comes to trade..

And wall street.

[pampango]

11. Trump is no FDR on trade. He is more like Herbert Hoover & Calvin Coolidge and

the modern European far-right (like Marine Le Pen): higher tariffs, less immigration.

I don't think Wall Street is quaking in its boots over the prospect of a Trump presidency though Bernie would be much better than Hillary on this.

[SoapBox]

3. MORE Hill baggage...

There isn't a cargo train big enough to carry all the Clinton baggage.

[Nitram]

14. Are Bernie supporters really that clueless about how the role of the SOS?

The secretary of state's job is to execute the president's foreign policy, no more, no less. Baggage? Broken record.

[msongs]

4. secretary of state promoting the president's agenda. well there is a massive shocker for ya nt

[Kall]

6. Don't kid yourself.

She'll go right back to supporting the "gold standard" TPP that she said she opposed a few weeks before the Democratic primary began after hemming and hawing over it a good long while, once that position is no longer politically convenient. The US Chamber of Commerce is already saying as much, and she has taken absolutely no offence at the notion.

[democrank]

12. msongs....This isn`t about the Secretary of State "promoting the president`s agenda", it`s about

Hillary Clinton saying one thing and doing another. It`s a pattern with her.

[LovingA2andMI]

5. And We Have A Primary in Michigan March 8 --- So This Will Stick Like A Tongue on a Icy Pole...

She concludes the message about the call with Levin by saying, “I told him that at the rate we were going, Columbian workers were going to end up w the same or better rights than workers in Wisconsin and Indiana and, maybe even, Michigan.”

NATFA 2.0. Enough Said. If she wins Michigan -- I will be shocked. She could but there's no way in H.E. Double Hockey Sticks, Should!

[SoLeftIAmRight]

7. take a look at what happens to journalist

https://cpj.org/killed/americas/colombia/

[Peace Patriot]

8. The Clintons also promoted the corrupt, murderous, failed US 'war on drugs'...

...in Colombia, resulting in horrendous bloodshed and the biggest human displacement crisis in the world. Millions of small farmers forced into urban areas to become the slave laborers for "free trade for the rich"! Tens of thousands of farmers, their children, their animals, their food crops sprayed with poisons from US corporations to kill a few coca leaf plants. The Bush junta made these horrors even worse but the Clinton's started it and take money from the drug war profiteers.

The current president of Colombia is trying to end this horror. If Hillary is elected president, she will likely try to reverse his policies (legalization of all drugs, peace with the leftist guerrilla fighters), or take the drug war to new venues because war is so lucrative to her donors.

I saw this poster recently: "Vote Bernie Sanders: he is not an asshole."

That about says it!

[silvershadow]

9. There go more American jobs out the door. It is happening just as Perot said the plan was in 92.

Lock, stock, and baby bed. K&R for exposure. I dare one of these supporters to come at me now on something. My Dad was one of the last guys in town that shut the last factory down here in my town. The entire town has changed. The last of the retiree money is leaving town as they are dying off or moving away. Bill Clinton and some of the Third-Wayers were behind much of it. And usually when there is one Clinton involved in something, the other one is too.

[jalan48]

10. Can you say corporate tool?

[Nitram]

13. Shocking! The Secretary of State pursues the presidents foreign policy goals.

I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!

[moondust]

16. "personally lobbying Democratic members of Congress"

I'm pretty sure that's not in the job description for SOS. You really gotta want it to get that far into something the President himself should be doing.

Nice try, though.

[Zorro]

15. The US-Colombia FTA has been good for US exporters, businesses, and workers