Uribe criticizes Obama over free trade pact

The White House is urging Congress to approve the agreement, which would remove most tariffs on American exports and cement Colombia’s preferential trade status with the United States.But Illinois Sen. Obama said Wednesday he would oppose the deal.”I deplore the fact that Senator Obama, aspiring to be president of the United States, should be unaware of Colombia’s efforts,” President Alvaro Uribe said in a statement. “I think it is for political calculations that he is making a statement that does not correspond to Colombia’s reality.”Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are wooing labor union members as they campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in Pennsylvania, where the primary is April 22.”I will oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement if President Bush insists on sending it to Congress because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements,” Obama said Wednesday at a meeting of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO in Philadelphia.