US Action News

Obama has implied that the FTA’s are held up by the GOP but its the unions demanding another half billion in funding for Trade Adjustment Assistance which pays unions for claims that jobs were lost to overseas companies. Solyndra employees are filing for over $14 million in assistance even though the failure of Solyndra has nothing to do with foreign competition. Senator McConnell says that American jobs are more important than Obama appeasing his union allies.

Blaming China will allow Obama administration to spend another $14 million plus to “retrain” former Solyndra employees.

[B]y not passing the FTAs, politicians maintain union support but don’t lose any political support because unemployed workers around the country aren’t even aware that their lack of employment might be due to Congressional and presidential inaction on the FTAs.

One contradiction is that the president says nice things about trade agreements in the abstract, but he has so far refused to show leadership when it really matters.

Republican congressional leaders say they will use a new trade deal with South Korea that President Obama wants to pass, as leverage to move a long-delayed agreement with Colombia.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to permit any vote on the Colombian pact, which was submitted to Congress two years ago. She doesn’t fear it’ll fail; she fears it’ll pass. Unions control Pelosi and Obama and the Democrats. Unions don’t want free trade agreements. The top 20 recipients of union campaign contributions are Democrats. Its easy to connect the dots and see why we have no free trade agreements with Colombia even though it would help the struggling US economy.

Congress and President Obama have repeatedly refused opportunities to advance trade legislation. Three pending Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) — particularly one with Colombia (CFTA) — is costing U.S. consumers and businesses billions in lost opportunities.