I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
During the Democratic presidential primary, Obama indicated that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) wasn’t sacrosanct as far as he was concerned, and that he’d be willing to scuttle it if stronger environmental and labor standards weren’t renegotiated.
Later, one of his campaign aides suggested that such sentiments were just part of the political game and that Obama had no intention of renegotiating NAFTA. Well, maybe “renegotiate” isn’t the right word. Perhaps it’s just another stellar example of Obama’s mastery of semantics, but the proper word for what he intends to do regarding NAFTA, apparently, is “upgrade.”
During a 90-minute luncheon with Mexican President Felipe Calderón earlier this week, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said, Obama “expressed his continued commitment to upgrading NAFTA to strengthen labor and environmental provisions to reflect the values that are widely shared in both of our countries.”
Calderón then said on Tuesday during a meeting with President Bush that Mexico has “…always been willing to revise aspects” of NAFTA.
Further evidence of the position Obama will take on so-called “free trade” agreements can be found in the written answers Secretary of State designate Hillary Clinton gave to written questions from Sen. John Kerry prior to her senate confirmation hearings.
Solicited for her views on the proposed U.S./Colombian Free Trade Agreement, Clinton focused almost exclusively on the violence against labor unionists in Colombia, going so far as to say that the safety of trade unionists couldn’t be guaranteed at this time.
“With regard to the trade agreement, it is essential that trade spread the benefits of globalization,” she wrote. “Without adequate labor protections, trade cannot do that. Although levels of violence have dropped, continued violence and impunity in Colombia directed at labor and other civic leaders makes labor protections impossible to guarantee in Colombia today.”
Clinton then said Colombia “must improve its efforts” (PDF-page 72) and that she looked forward seeing what the U.S. could do to help end violence against labor and civic leaders in Colombia.
That was about all she said about the trade agreement. Otherwise, she affirmed the U.S. commitment to a bi-lateral relationship with Colombia.
