Americans not tuned into president’s trade mission
USA Today
Not surprisingly, many Americans find it difficult to fathom the “consequences” for them of the president’s efforts to help create jobs and reduce poverty in poorer nations that share our hemisphere.
They are too concerned about gasoline that costs $2.50 a gallon and loss of jobs in their own country to fret over the economic woes of their Latin American neighbors.
And fretting, as they surf through the channels on their televisions made in China with a remote likely produced there as well, whether Chavez is a Communist, or socialist, but a virus certainly, and a relatively small group of hooded hoodlums will soon be breaking down their doors and wresting those controllers from their hands.
“Why oh why, Martha, don’t these damned people see if they just do what the U.S. tells them they’ll live like kings – like us?”
“But George, if they live like kings, who’ll make our tvs?”
Good luck to Martin in the next election, eh?
“Freer and fairer trade will lift more human beings out of poverty than all the assistance programs in the world combined,” he added.
Even as he was preaching the virtues of free trade, Mr. Martin is battling Mr. Bush on the long-running softwood-lumber trade dispute. Mr. Martin told reporters earlier in the day that he appreciates support from Mexican President Vicente Fox in efforts to make Washington comply with the North American free-trade agreement dispute-settlement process in the softwood case.
Update 11/07: George’s good friend may be facing an election sooner than I’d thought:
Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) — Canada’s New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton said he sees “no basis” to continue supporting the minority Liberal Party government, increasing the chances opposition parties will seek to oust Prime Minister Paul Martin as early as next week.
[…]
Martin’s government could collapse less than 18 months after he won a minority of seats in the last general elections. Opposition parties can force elections if they defeat key pieces of legislation or declare that parliament doesn’t have confidence in the government.
The Conservative Party, Canada’s largest opposition group, and the separatist Bloc Quebecois have sought to bring down the government since April, when allegations first surfaced that Liberal fundraisers in Quebec accepted kickbacks in exchange for government advertising contracts. The parties could introduce a motion to bring down the government as early as Nov. 15.