TRADE-US:
Bush Faces Uphill Battle
on Colombia Trade Pact
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON (IPS) - As
U.S. President George W.
Bush Tuesday formally
submitted his free trade
agreement (FTA) with
Colombia to Congress,
most analysts agreed
that the White House
faces a tough, uphill
fight to get it
approved, particularly
in the House of
Representatives.
With the two Democratic
presidential candidates,
Sens. Hillary Clinton
and Barack Obama,
already committed to
opposing the deal,
Bush's hopes lie with
peeling off just enough
lawmakers in the
majority party -- while
keeping his fellow
Republicans in line --
to put it over the top.
In announcing his
decision to submit the
pact, on which Congress
will have to vote up or
down within 90
legislative days under
"fast-track authority",
Bush held out one key
sweetener -- his
willingness to sign a
"good, bipartisan"
extension of the
now-lapsed Trade
Adjustment Assistance (TAA)
programme, which could
provide billions of
dollars in training and
benefits for U.S.
workers who have lost
their jobs due to
overseas competition.
"I look forward to
completing an agreement
on trade adjustment that
draws on many of the
good ideas contained in
bills introduced in the
House and the Senate,"
he said.
Democratic leaders,
however, quickly
denounced Bush's move,
noting that it marked
the first time that a
president had failed to
negotiate a process and
timetable with key
Congressional leaders in
advance of submitting a
fast-track trade
agreement.
"The president is making
a big mistake," said the
normally trade-friendly
chairman of the Senate
Finance Committee, Max
Baucus, although some
key Democratic leaders
suggested that they had
not shut the door on a
deal that could secure
their support.
"House Democrats are
committed to supporting
Colombia and the efforts
of President (Alvaro)
Uribe," House Speaker
Diane Pelosi and Ways
and Means Committee
Chairman Charles Rangel
said in a statement that
stressed Bush's
bypassing of normal
procedures. They said
they could not support
free-trade accord "under
present circumstances".
Trade union leaders, a
key Democratic
constituency, were more
categorical, however.
"There's nothing that
could be in TAA that in
our view would be
considered an adequate
trade-off for the
Colombia agreement,"
said Thea Lee, the
policy director of the
country's largest union
federation, the AFL-CIO.
"We're not looking for a
deal. Period."
While Colombia already
benefits from duty-free
treatment on most of its
exports to the U.S.
under the 2002 Andean
Trade Promotion and Drug
Eradication Act,
approval of the FTA
would make those
advantages permanent. In
addition, the pact would
eliminate tariffs on
more than 80 percent of
U.S.-manufactured
exports to Colombia.
U.S. exports to Colombia
last year were worth
slightly more than eight
billion dollars, while
Colombian exports to the
U.S. -- mainly coffee,
fruit, and textiles --
came to about nine
billion dollars.
While bilateral trade
represents a tiny
fraction of U.S. trade
with Mexico, for
example, the fate of the
Colombia FTA is seen by
both its friends and
foes as having much
greater regional and
even global
implications.
The Bush administration
and its supporters have
argued that the accord
should be approved above
all for reasons of
national security. This
point was strongly
reinforced Monday when
Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and
Secretary of Defence
Robert Gates published
separate opinion
articles in the Wall
Street Journal and Miami
Herald, respectively,
arguing that Uribe's
government stands as a
pro-U.S. bulwark against
the threats posed by
both "narco-terrorism"
and "authoritarianism"
in the region.
"The (FTA) offers a
pivotal opportunity to
help a valued strategic
partner consolidate
security gains,
strengthen its economy
and reduce the regional
threat of narco-terrorism,"
wrote Gates. "This is an
opportunity we cannot --
and must not -- ignore."
Administration officials
also argue that
Congress' rejection of
the FTA -- which would
be the first ever of a
fast-track agreement
submitted to Congress --
could be understood by
much of the rest of the
world, where confidence
in the U.S. dollar is
already shaky, to say
the least, as a
rejection of free trade
and economic
globalisation.
"The U.S. and the world
economy is jittery, and
still headed for a real
panic," according to
Chris Nelson in the
widely read insider
newsletter, 'The Nelson
Report.' "A first-ever
defeat of a Fast-Track
protected trade deal
would be seen by the
global markets as a
portent of coming
protectionism and
perhaps worse...and how
would that impact on
world financial
stability?"
The White House could be
calculating that those
considerations alone
could force the
Democratic leadership
into a face-saving deal,
according to Nelson, a
point implied as well by
Rice's warning in the
Journal: "(L)et no one
think that the choices
we make will not echo
around the globe."
But with both Clinton
and Obama, whose battle
for the nomination is
currently focused on
Pennsylvania, a major
industrial state that
has suffered heavy job
losses over the past
generation due in part
to foreign competition,
opposed to the accord,
it will be difficult for
even a few Democrats to
embrace it, even if
White House concessions
on TAA are more generous
than anticipated.
Clinton herself demoted
her chief campaign
strategist, Mark Penn,
last weekend after it
was disclosed that Penn,
in his capacity as a
public-relations
executive, had privately
advised Colombia's
ambassador here on how
to gain approval for the
deal on Capitol Hill.
In addition to the two
Democratic candidates'
courtship of blue-collar
workers who have come to
see free trade and
globalisation as a
losing proposition, the
Democrats' opposition is
also motivated by
specific concerns over
the plight of union
activists in Colombia,
some 2,500 of whom have
been killed -- mostly by
paramilitary death
squads -- over the past
20 years, including at
least 12 so far in 2008.
While Uribe has boasted
of his government's
efforts to increase
protection for union
leaders, both the
Democratic leadership
and union leaders here
argue that Washington
should not sign a
free-trade agreement
with any country where
labour organisers find
themselves at such high
levels of risk.
That argument has
appeared compelling even
to a few Republicans,
although the party's
presumptive nominee,
Sen. John McCain, has
come out strongly for
the pact.
"I will not support the
FTA with Colombia due to
ongoing concerns about
Bogota's failure to
prosecute individuals,
including some close to
its government and
military, who have
murdered and otherwise
oppressed union leaders
in that country," said
Republican Sen. Olympia
Snowe Monday.
"Mere progress by the
Colombian government in
reducing still
unconscionable levels of
violence against trade
unionists is simply not
enough," she added. She
was joined by the
influential former
chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations
Committee, Richard
Lugar, who voiced
support for the FTA but
added that without
"tangible proof" of
progress in labour
practices in Colombia,
the pact could be
derailed.
Still, Bush's decision
to send the FTA to
Congress may at least
prove politically
clever, if only because
it highlights their
drift away from the
"free-trade" agenda
pursued by several
Democratic
administrations
including Bill
Clinton's. That, in
turn, could persuade
major corporate donors,
who have been pouring
money into Democratic
campaign coffers this
year, to reconsider.
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