Rangel: Bush wants FTA with Colombia to Curb Hugo Chávez

What a window this story is into the astonishly crude realpolitik going on right now in Washington, as the Bush Adminstration further erodes the legitimacy of in the global war on terror, as well as the fairness of our trade and Latin American foreign policy - all in the name of an apparently refurbished anti-Communist hysteria.

El Universal, Venezuela
Charles Rangel, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives, accused Thursday the government of US President George W. Bush of pressing the Congress to pass a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia in order to counter Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

"The Government is lobbying desperately for this agreement," said Rangel, the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. The approval any FTA's between the United States and foreign countries depends on this agency, AFP reported.

"However, whenever I speak to the President, the Treasury Secretary or the Trade Representative, nobody of them would tell me why this agreement is good for the United States," he added during a conference sponsored by The Cato Institute on the US embargo on Cuba held in the Congress.

"All of them say that Colombian President Álvaro Uribe is against Chávez, and, for such reason, the Congress should pass the agreement."