Discussion surrounding the U.S. - Colombia Free Trade Agreement resurfaced this week in the news and in Washington after President Obama asked U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Ron Kirk, "to lead a review of the Colombia agreement to deal with outstanding issues there." According to CQ Politics, in a conference call with reporters on Monday, "Kirk said that while...
The long-awaited Summit of the Americas came to a close yesterday in Trinidad and Tobago, with only one of the 34 heads of state signing the Final Declaration. Despite a failure to unanimously agree on a final declaration for the Summit, however, an overwhelming consensus has deemed the weekend's meeting of democratically elected heads of state from the Western Hemisphere a success. The success of the Summit is evident...
The Obama administration's announced changes to U.S. policy toward Cuba have dominated today's headlines. Jonathan Keyser, an intern with the Center for International Policy's Cuba Program, offers this analysis. Yesterday, the Obama administration announced its decision to remove all travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban Americans. This represents a notable...
Download the report: (PDF, 1.1 MB) Over the past nine years, an estimated 300,000 Colombian refugees have crossed their country's border with Ecuador, fleeing persecution, threats, disappearances, murders and deliberate displacement by the parties to Colombia's long conflict. In November 2008, staff from the Center for International Policy accompanied Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) on a four-day visit to Ecuador's northeastern...
In a press conference yesterday with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that for the first time, the Mexican military is going to take part in a joint military exercise with the United States. According to General Cartwright, a meeting with his counterparts in the Mexican military last week resulted in a decision to "start to...
Last week, the Government of El Salvador extended its agreement with the United States to allow U.S. anti-narcotics aircraft to operate out of the Salvadoran Air Force base at Comalapa for five more years. Since March 2000, the United States has used the Comalapa Air Force base as a Forward Operating Location (FOL) - the same arrangement as the Manta Air Base in Ecuador, which U.S. personnel will be vacating by November - to "allow...