Press Briefing by Dana Perino

Business Wire, April 9, 2008

So we are very concerned. I think that people need to also look to what President Uribe has been able to do in the past seven years. A few numbers: Kidnappings in Colombia since he took office are down by 83 percent; homicides are down by 40 percent; terrorist attacks down 76 percent since 2002. They've had record economic growth. They had 6.8 percent economic growth in 2007 -- that's the highest in eight years. Public school enrollment has increased to 92 percent. Poverty has decreased by almost 20 percent, reaching record low levels, and unemployment is at its lowest level in a decade.

And in addition, for those who are concerned about the trade unionists in Colombia, homicides of trade unionists have fallen by 80 percent since 2002. People are much safer today in Colombia because of President Uribe. And the President has worked with him on a variety of matters. And one of them has been on trade.

And we are very concerned -- I will say that -- obviously the deal is not dead yet, because there's been no votes taken, but we are very concerned about the signal that Speaker Pelosi gave today, because we think it's not just bad for this administration, but for all future administrations, because the U.S. Trade Representative, under Trade Promotion Authority, is given empowerment -- is empowered to negotiate on behalf of the United States. And what country, after this action, will look to the Trade Representative -- be it Sue Schwab, our Trade Representative, or whoever it is in the future -- and think that they'll be able to count on their word? It's very, very troubling.

Q Dana, Speaker Pelosi says that if she were to bring that to a vote right now it would fail. Would you prefer that it fail or that it's delayed?

MS. PERINO: Let's have that vote then. Let's have that opportunity and let's put people on the record -- because I think there are a lot of people up there, a lot of Democrats who don't want to have this bill -- this trade deal go through. They don't want to have their fingerprints on killing it either.

Q So you would prefer that to negotiating some more on the Trade Adjustment --

MS. PERINO: Well, let's be honest about it. We think that we could get it to a position where it could pass; sure we do. But the fact that they don't even want to have a vote should maybe tell you something, because maybe she's not so confident of the votes that they say that they have.

Q But she's suggesting the way to get it passed is to continue to negotiate on the --

MS. PERINO: We have negotiated. We have negotiated and we have addressed her concerns about -- on labor matters, on environmental standards. Go back and look at coverage from May of 2007, where many people were very surprised at how we compromised and all the concessions that we made on matters in order to deal with that. And in addition to that, we've said that we will continue to work with them on Trade Adjustment Assistance, for workers here who are concerned about losing their job, and what that means to them in terms of worker retraining.