The Economic and National Security Implications of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement

Transcript

SENATOR BOND:  We face a huge threat to the global community and to the United States, and that is ideological terrorism. Free nations such as the United States and Colombia ought to work together to defeat the common threat, and that’s exactly what we have been doing and seeing in Colombia. We cannot win the war on terror by military force alone. The war that the terrorists have declared on us can only be won by winning the war of ideas and public opinion and assistance in addition to the kinetic force which must be used to deal with imminent threats. The combination is the premise of the idea I call smart power.

About 15 years ago, my good friend, the late Alan Woods, who was head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, issued a report now known as the Woods Report. In that report, they noted what was really important to help less developed countries move forward, how we can realize our humanitarian and our strategic interests. They said just turning money over to a country’s leaders too often wound up with money in Swiss bank accounts and the purchase of European autos.

They said the two things that are critical are, number one, educational exchanges, information exchanges and, two, economic interchanges. That is trade, and that is direct foreign investment.

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