ISDS Case Map
US
The United States Congress is likely to put on hold for several months, possibly a year, legislation for setting up reconstruction opportunity zones (ROZs) in tribal areas and finalisation of a bilateral investment treaty till a new democratic set-up comes into power in Pakistan
Even the New York Times, which has reported very little about the horrendous violence against Colombia's workers and campesinos, in an Oct. 8 editorial recommended that the pending Free Trade Agreement with Colombia be delayed because “President Álvaro Uribe and his government have not done enough to bring to justice the paramilitary thugs-and their political backers-responsible for widespread human rights violations.”
The Bush administration has enlisted an unlikely ally in its international trade agenda: Hugo Chávez, the leftist president of Venezuela, who makes a practice of denouncing United States' influence in Latin America.
Korea's ambassador to Washington Lee Tae-sik believes the free trade agreement between Korea and the US will be ratified sometime next year.
South Korea's top agriculture policymaker said that there will be no linkage between plans to rewrite US beef import rules with the ratification of the free trade agreement that was signed in late June.
Japan is not yet ready to commit to economic reforms and other "bold steps" needed to launch negotiations for a free trade agreement with the United States, a senior American official said Friday.
There's still a long way to go before Asean and the United States can ink a free trade agreement (FTA), but trade representatives from both sides are hoping that next month's Asean Summit will enable them to move the process forward.
"When President Bush says the economy benefits from trade deals, he
must mean the part of the economy he cares about -- the top one percent,"
Teamsters President Jim Hoffa said. "It's not competition we're afraid of, but the global
capitalists who rig the system against the American worker."
Washington officials say that even if Gonzalez -- the president of Panama's National Assembly, who is wanted on murder charges in the US -- were to quit, attitudes in Congress and in the Bush administration have hardened against the free trade deal.
With a firm eye on the support of labor unions, which oppose free trade pacts, US presidential contender Hillary Clinton denounced not only the Korea-US trade deal but also NAFTA, which was signed by her own husband, former president Bill Clinton. It seems the Korea-US FTA is unlikely to be ratified by Congress before the tenure of President George W. Bush is out.
