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President Obama bagged his prepared remarks at the Summit of the Americas today, but urged U.S. and Latin American political and business leaders to expand trade as a path to prosperity.
"My hope is that we all recognize this enormous opportunity we've got," Obama told summit attendees in Cartagena, Colombia. President Obama is promoting more trade between the United States and Latin America by saying that businesses throughout the hemisphere can benefit from "nearly a billion consumers."
"With nearly a billion citizens -- nearly a billion consumers -- among us, there's so much more we can do together," Obama planned to say during today's 33-nation Summit of the Americas.
According to prepared remarks released by the White House, Obama planned to say that "far too many people still live in poverty" in the hemisphere, and "stark inequalities endure." Increased trade is one answer, but the president will point out that "it's estimated that trade across the hemisphere is only half of what it could be. Clearly, we can do better." Later today, Obama will attend the plenary session of the summit, as well as the leaders' dinner.
In his prepared remarks, Obama does plan to say that "in Colombia and beyond, economies are seeing impressive growth. Tens of millions have escaped poverty. A growing middle class is creating new markets."
Obama will cite new trade agreements and economic partnerships with nations in Central and South America. He planned to say, "over the past two years, U.S. goods exports to the Americas have increased by nearly 50 percent."
"Put simply, we have one of the world's most dynamic trade relationships," Obama said in the prepared remarks. But challenges remain, "and that's why we're here."
"I've said it before and I'll say it again," Obama planned to declare ."For the Americas, this is a moment of great promise. And I believe if we seize the opportunities before us, we'll continue to be each other's economic partners of choice."
"But," he expected to tell the CEOs that "governments can't do it alone. We need you -- the private sector -- to work with us. We need your ideas."
The CEO meeting is expected to include executives from Wal-Mart, Pepsi, Yahoo and Caterpillar, among other big companies.
The Associated Press reported that Tom Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told business leaders in Colombia that the U.S. is focusing too much on Asia at the expense of Latin America. He urged more nations from the Americans to join the pro-trade Trans-Pacific Partnership. "The TPP is mostly dancing to an Asian tune," Donohue said. "I think the TPP could use a little salsa, cumbia, or even samba."
TAMPA --
President Barack Obama, determined to connect his upcoming Latin American travels to voters back home, told Port of Tampa workers that he was headed to Colombia to find more customers for U.S. companies to help fuel the broader economic recovery at home.
Obama toured the port Friday on the first leg of a weekend trip to Cartagena, Colombia, for the Summit of the Americas, a gathering that the president said would allow him to connect the needs of U.S. workers with trade opportunities in a growing region.
"While I'm in Colombia talking with other leaders, I'm going to be thinking about you," Obama told workers after touring a sprawling concrete port ringed by containers and three large cranes. "I want us selling stuff, and I want us putting more Americans back to work."
The president's stop in Tampa on Friday was driven not just by Florida's trade connections to the region south of its borders. Obama, in an election year, also wanted to stop in a politically important state to drive home the point that his work at the Summit of the Americas in Colombia would have ramifications in the U.S.
The short visit also provided an image the White House desires: Obama with his shirt sleeves rolled up, surrounded by cranes and shipping containers, before he ventured out of the country.
"A lot of the countries in this region are on the rise. In Latin America alone, over the past decade, tens of millions of people have stepped out of poverty and into the middle class. So they're now in a position to start buying American products," Obama said.
"That means they've got more money to spend, and we want them spending money on American-made goods, so that American businesses can put more Americans back to work." It was Obama's second trip to Florida this week. The state is expected to be one of the chief election battlegrounds as Obama gears up to face Republican Mitt Romney.
Outside Central and South America, Obama's three-day visit was expected to be closely watched by Latinos, a key voting group in the U.S. With more than 50 million U.S. Hispanics - 21 million of them eligible voters, Obama has an important audience that is especially vital in an election year.
During the brief detour, Obama outlined an initiative that helps small businesses, including those owned by Latinos, get financing and connect with foreign buyers interested in their products. The president has set a goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2014.
The White House pointed to the area's history of trade with Latin America, saying more than 40 percent of total exports from the Port of Tampa are destined for countries in Latin America.
Such outreach to the U.S.'s southern neighborhood is not unique to Obama. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush before him also "understood that the right Latin American policies and relations could match the right domestic relations toward Latinos and immigrants," said Nelson Cunningham, who served in the Clinton White House as a special adviser on Western Hemisphere affairs.
Obama will arrive in Colombia with larger and more immediate foreign policy entanglements facing him, including North Korea's failed launch of a long-range rocket Thursday, a budding though fragile truce in Syria, and international talks in Turkey over Iran's nuclear program.
Indeed, Obama had a similar experience last year, traveling to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, a trip overshadowed by the U.S. bombing of Libya as part of an international military campaign to remove Moammar Gadhafi.
Obama was making his fourth trip to the region, with a fifth visit upcoming in June, when he is scheduled to attend a Group of 20 session in Mexico. What's more, the past two weeks in Washington featured a joint meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a separate meeting this week with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
Polls show that a vast majority of Latino voters support Obama, who carried 67 percent of the Latino vote over Republican John McCain in 2008. But Obama's deportation policies and lack of progress on changing immigration laws have softened his support, and Obama aides are determined to re-energize that voting bloc in time for the November election.
In toss-up states such as Florida, Colorado and Nevada, the Latino vote could be essential. "If you look at where Latino voters exist now in the United States, they are in great numbers in a lot of the states that are going to be bellwethers," said Cunningham, now managing partner of McLarty Associates, an international advisory firm.
Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a think tank that studies U.S. Latino voters and relations with Latin America, pointed out there are 50,000 Colombian immigrants in Florida alone, a bloc with a vested interest in Obama's trip that could help decide an election in a close contest.
If Hispanics are paying attention to Obama's trip, so are many in the business community who have been pressing the administration to expand trade. They will be keeping a close watch on whether Obama will announce that Colombia has met the labor rights conditions that were required under a free trade agreement approved by Congress and signed by Obama last year.
Obama is under pressure from U.S. labor leaders to put off that announcement. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has sent a delegation to Cartagena to participate in a regional CEOs summit on Saturday, is pushing Obama to implement the trade deal.
White House officials this week sidestepped questions about what the president might do, but they did note that he will be accompanied by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, a sign that the issue will not be far from his mind.
Solis began Friday's program by acknowledging Tampa is a "hub for international trade."Obama was introduced by David Hale, president of Tampa Tank Inc./Florida Structural Steel. Air Force One landed at Tampa International Airport just after noon. He was greeted by Gov. Rick Scott, Mayor Bob Buckhorn and U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor.
Real Shocking Crimes caught on camera: "Warning Graphic."
What your mainstream media never tell you: Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras. Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting? It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox. اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला قتل أسامة بن لادن Oussama Ben Laden tué Osama Bin Laden getötet Usama bin Ladin dödas DURBAN, South Africa -- “No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve. Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants. The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic. Subscribe to VesInteL World News by Email
President Obama bagged his prepared remarks at the Summit of the Americas today, but urged U.S. and Latin American political and business leaders to expand trade as a path to prosperity.
"My hope is that we all recognize this enormous opportunity we've got," Obama told summit attendees in Cartagena, Colombia. President Obama is promoting more trade between the United States and Latin America by saying that businesses throughout the hemisphere can benefit from "nearly a billion consumers."
"With nearly a billion citizens -- nearly a billion consumers -- among us, there's so much more we can do together," Obama planned to say during today's 33-nation Summit of the Americas.
According to prepared remarks released by the White House, Obama planned to say that "far too many people still live in poverty" in the hemisphere, and "stark inequalities endure." Increased trade is one answer, but the president will point out that "it's estimated that trade across the hemisphere is only half of what it could be. Clearly, we can do better." Later today, Obama will attend the plenary session of the summit, as well as the leaders' dinner.
In his prepared remarks, Obama does plan to say that "in Colombia and beyond, economies are seeing impressive growth. Tens of millions have escaped poverty. A growing middle class is creating new markets."
Obama will cite new trade agreements and economic partnerships with nations in Central and South America. He planned to say, "over the past two years, U.S. goods exports to the Americas have increased by nearly 50 percent."
"Put simply, we have one of the world's most dynamic trade relationships," Obama said in the prepared remarks. But challenges remain, "and that's why we're here."
"I've said it before and I'll say it again," Obama planned to declare ."For the Americas, this is a moment of great promise. And I believe if we seize the opportunities before us, we'll continue to be each other's economic partners of choice."
"But," he expected to tell the CEOs that "governments can't do it alone. We need you -- the private sector -- to work with us. We need your ideas."
The CEO meeting is expected to include executives from Wal-Mart, Pepsi, Yahoo and Caterpillar, among other big companies.
The Associated Press reported that Tom Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told business leaders in Colombia that the U.S. is focusing too much on Asia at the expense of Latin America. He urged more nations from the Americans to join the pro-trade Trans-Pacific Partnership. "The TPP is mostly dancing to an Asian tune," Donohue said. "I think the TPP could use a little salsa, cumbia, or even samba."
TAMPA --
President Barack Obama, determined to connect his upcoming Latin American travels to voters back home, told Port of Tampa workers that he was headed to Colombia to find more customers for U.S. companies to help fuel the broader economic recovery at home.
Obama toured the port Friday on the first leg of a weekend trip to Cartagena, Colombia, for the Summit of the Americas, a gathering that the president said would allow him to connect the needs of U.S. workers with trade opportunities in a growing region.
"While I'm in Colombia talking with other leaders, I'm going to be thinking about you," Obama told workers after touring a sprawling concrete port ringed by containers and three large cranes. "I want us selling stuff, and I want us putting more Americans back to work."
The president's stop in Tampa on Friday was driven not just by Florida's trade connections to the region south of its borders. Obama, in an election year, also wanted to stop in a politically important state to drive home the point that his work at the Summit of the Americas in Colombia would have ramifications in the U.S.
The short visit also provided an image the White House desires: Obama with his shirt sleeves rolled up, surrounded by cranes and shipping containers, before he ventured out of the country.
"A lot of the countries in this region are on the rise. In Latin America alone, over the past decade, tens of millions of people have stepped out of poverty and into the middle class. So they're now in a position to start buying American products," Obama said.
"That means they've got more money to spend, and we want them spending money on American-made goods, so that American businesses can put more Americans back to work." It was Obama's second trip to Florida this week. The state is expected to be one of the chief election battlegrounds as Obama gears up to face Republican Mitt Romney.
Outside Central and South America, Obama's three-day visit was expected to be closely watched by Latinos, a key voting group in the U.S. With more than 50 million U.S. Hispanics - 21 million of them eligible voters, Obama has an important audience that is especially vital in an election year.
During the brief detour, Obama outlined an initiative that helps small businesses, including those owned by Latinos, get financing and connect with foreign buyers interested in their products. The president has set a goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2014.
The White House pointed to the area's history of trade with Latin America, saying more than 40 percent of total exports from the Port of Tampa are destined for countries in Latin America.
Such outreach to the U.S.'s southern neighborhood is not unique to Obama. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush before him also "understood that the right Latin American policies and relations could match the right domestic relations toward Latinos and immigrants," said Nelson Cunningham, who served in the Clinton White House as a special adviser on Western Hemisphere affairs.
Obama will arrive in Colombia with larger and more immediate foreign policy entanglements facing him, including North Korea's failed launch of a long-range rocket Thursday, a budding though fragile truce in Syria, and international talks in Turkey over Iran's nuclear program.
Indeed, Obama had a similar experience last year, traveling to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, a trip overshadowed by the U.S. bombing of Libya as part of an international military campaign to remove Moammar Gadhafi.
Obama was making his fourth trip to the region, with a fifth visit upcoming in June, when he is scheduled to attend a Group of 20 session in Mexico. What's more, the past two weeks in Washington featured a joint meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a separate meeting this week with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
Polls show that a vast majority of Latino voters support Obama, who carried 67 percent of the Latino vote over Republican John McCain in 2008. But Obama's deportation policies and lack of progress on changing immigration laws have softened his support, and Obama aides are determined to re-energize that voting bloc in time for the November election.
In toss-up states such as Florida, Colorado and Nevada, the Latino vote could be essential. "If you look at where Latino voters exist now in the United States, they are in great numbers in a lot of the states that are going to be bellwethers," said Cunningham, now managing partner of McLarty Associates, an international advisory firm.
Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a think tank that studies U.S. Latino voters and relations with Latin America, pointed out there are 50,000 Colombian immigrants in Florida alone, a bloc with a vested interest in Obama's trip that could help decide an election in a close contest.
If Hispanics are paying attention to Obama's trip, so are many in the business community who have been pressing the administration to expand trade. They will be keeping a close watch on whether Obama will announce that Colombia has met the labor rights conditions that were required under a free trade agreement approved by Congress and signed by Obama last year.
Obama is under pressure from U.S. labor leaders to put off that announcement. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has sent a delegation to Cartagena to participate in a regional CEOs summit on Saturday, is pushing Obama to implement the trade deal.
White House officials this week sidestepped questions about what the president might do, but they did note that he will be accompanied by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, a sign that the issue will not be far from his mind.
Solis began Friday's program by acknowledging Tampa is a "hub for international trade."Obama was introduced by David Hale, president of Tampa Tank Inc./Florida Structural Steel. Air Force One landed at Tampa International Airport just after noon. He was greeted by Gov. Rick Scott, Mayor Bob Buckhorn and U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor.
Real Shocking Crimes caught on camera: "Warning Graphic."
What your mainstream media never tell you: Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras. Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting? It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox. اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला قتل أسامة بن لادن Oussama Ben Laden tué Osama Bin Laden getötet Usama bin Ladin dödas DURBAN, South Africa -- “No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve. Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants. The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic. Subscribe to VesInteL World News by Email
