WORLD
Obama to Tampa port workers: Latin American exports key
Baku, April 16 (AZERTAC). President Barack Obama, determined to connect his upcoming Latin American travels to voters back home, told Port of Tampa workers that he was headed to Colombia to find more customers for U.S. companies to help fuel the broader economic recovery at home.
Obama toured the port Friday on the first leg of a weekend trip to Cartagena, Colombia, for the Summit of the Americas, a gathering that the president said would allow him to connect the needs of U.S. workers with trade opportunities in a growing region.
"While I`m in Colombia talking with other leaders, I`m going to be thinking about you," Obama told workers after touring a sprawling concrete port ringed by containers and three large cranes. "I want us selling stuff, and I want us putting more Americans back to work."
The president`s stop in Tampa on Friday was driven not just by Florida`s trade connections to the region south of its borders. Obama, in an election year, also wanted to stop in a politically important state to drive home the point that his work at the Summit of the Americas in Colombia would have ramifications in the U.S.
The short visit also provided an image the White House desires: Obama with his shirt sleeves rolled up, surrounded by cranes and shipping containers, before he ventured out of the country.
During the brief detour, Obama outlined an initiative that helps small businesses, including those owned by Latinos, get financing and connect with foreign buyers interested in their products. The president has set a goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2014.Such outreach to the U.S.`s southern neighborhood is not unique to Obama. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush before him also "understood that the right Latin American policies and relations could match the right domestic relations toward Latinos and immigrants," said Nelson Cunningham, who served in the Clinton White House as a special adviser on Western Hemisphere affairs.
Obama will arrive in Colombia with larger and more immediate foreign policy entanglements facing him, including North Korea`s failed launch of a long-range rocket Thursday, a budding though fragile truce in Syria, and international talks in Turkey over Iran`s nuclear program.
White House officials this week sidestepped questions about what the president might do, but they did note that he will be accompanied by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Labor
Air Force One landed at Tampa International Airport just after noon. He was greeted by Gov. Rick Scott, Mayor Bob Buckhorn and U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor.