Obama to Push One Free Trade Pact He Pledged to Oppose

By GottaLaff

David Sirota brings us this one:

As a candidate, Barack Obama said he would oppose the Panama, South Korea and Colombia Free Trade Agreements. You can verify that (among other places) here. Now, Reuters has the report on a declaration from Tim Geithner (not a shock coming from him, a devout Rubinite):

U.S. President Barack Obama will work with Congress to move forward on long-stalled free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday.

The Obama administration's endorsement of the Panama pact appears to be a straight-up betrayal of the candidate's campaign promise because the administration says it wants to pass the pact "quickly" and without changes. This is particularly bad not just because it violates a campaign promise, but because its well-known problem of legitimizing and legally securing various tax havens has become an even bigger problem in the new era of huge deficits - that is, in the era where we need to be closing tax havens, not protecting them. [...]

As for the administration's endorsement of the South Korea and Colombia trade agreement, we can't yet call it a betrayal because the White House has left open the possibility of trying to reform those deals before pushing for their passage.

Follow the link to read the whole thing.