2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bernie/Trump/Hillary On Trade Policy - When You Say You Are Against Free Trade Agreements [View all]PufPuf23
(8,687 posts)was put into place under Bill Clinton.
Prior to GWB, military base contracts were obtained for Soto Cano airbase in Honduras, Manta Airbase in Ecuador, and FOLs on Curacao and Aruba in the Dutch Antilles directly off the coast of Venezuela. The Manta base has been closed because an American contractor bomber FARC hostage negotiators from France and Venezuela within Ecuador. The Aruba FOL is inactive but improvements but facilities build and improvements made (air strip lengthened for fighters and bombers) and the contract with the Dutch is still in place. The Arubans did not like the FOL as early on rather than DEA and customs, US contractors sent F-15s to bomb FARC-led resistance to the Drummond railroad. Aruba operations were shifted to Curacao which was expanded.
Under POTUS Obama the USA entered contract relations for seven military bases within Colombia in support of Plan Colombia and the free trade agreement.
More about Soto Cano.
http://www.militarybases.us/air-force/soto-cano-air-base/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soto_Cano_Air_Base
Soto Cano Air Base (commonly known as Palmerola Air Base) is a Honduran military base 5 mi (8.0 km) to the south of Comayagua in Honduras. It houses between 500-600 US troops and is also used by the Honduran Air Force academy. The airbase became operational in 1981, changing the old location of the Honduras Air Force Academy in Toncontin, Tegucigalpa to Palmerola.
The US government once used Palmerola as a base of operations to support its foreign policy objectives in the 1980s. Now the US military uses Soto Cano as a launching point for counter-narcotics missions in Central America as well as humanitarian aid missions throughout Honduras and Central America.
In 1990 Honduran President Rafael Leonardo Callejas decreed that commercial cargo flights were authorized to operate from Soto Cano. In 2008 President Manuel Zelaya announced that commercial flights would begin at Palmerola within a period of 60 days, after a crash at Toncontín International Airport which resulted in 5 deaths was blamed on the runway being too short at Toncontín. Following an investigation into the incident, Pilot error was found to be the main cause. The military was placed in charge of building a civilian air terminal with funding from the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (enabled by emergency decrees). This however was cancelled after Zelaya was removed from office on June 28, 2009 in the 2009 Honduran coup d'état. The airport authority and the government of Honduras resumed airport relocation talks in April 2011 and announced that work on the new Palmerola airport would start by the fall of 2011 after years of efforts to replace Toncontín International with an airport at Palmerola in Comayagua where the Soto Cano Air Base is located. However, in a September 25, 2011 update, President Lobo stated officials were still "evaluating the pros and cons" of constructing the new airport. This comes three years after former President Manuel Zelaya had announced that all commercial flights would be transferred to Soto Cano Air Base; however, work on the new terminal at Soto Cano was then cancelled after Zelaya was removed from office on 28 June 2009 in the 2009 Honduran coup d'état.