Colombia Free Trade Pact: Approve it Now, Part I

We admit economics are not our forte, so maybe we’re missing something here. For nearly 17 years, the Andean trade preferences program has allowed Colombia and others to ship most of their goods to the U.S. paying reduced duties. It was an effort to boost legitimate trade and discourage drug production. The deal was one-way; U.S. exporters still have to pay duties when shipping to those countries. President Bush has completed a free-trade deal with Colombia that would open their markets to U.S. exporters, but Democrats in Congress do not want to approve it.

We admit economics are not our forte, so maybe we’re missing something here. For nearly 17 years, the Andean trade preferences program has allowed Colombia and others to ship most of their goods to the U.S. paying reduced duties. It was an effort to boost legitimate trade and discourage drug production. The deal was one-way; U.S. exporters still have to pay duties when shipping to those countries. President Bush has completed a free-trade deal with Colombia that would open their markets to U.S. exporters, but Democrats in Congress do not want to approve it.

It is understandable that the free-trade agreement is not particularly popular with some people in the region. It is less understandable why anyone in Washington would oppose it. Leveling the playing field a little bit with one of our southern neighbors should play well at home, particularly in an election year.

And Colombia is not just any country. Here we move into national security where we are more comfortable, but the Democrats are still wrong.

Nancy Pelosi opposes the agreement saying Colombia hasn’t done enough to curb violence against labor organizers. Charles Rangel, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, won’t bring the agreement up for a vote but won’t be specific about his concerns, saying it is the administration’s job to negotiate with Colombia. “I don’t put demands to sovereign countries,” he said. The President urged lawmakers to visit Colombia to judge the situation for themselves, but Rangel declines. “There’s nothing I could find out in Colombia that would help the situation we find ourselves in.”

So Democrats in Congress want Colombia’s democratically elected but beleaguered government, in the middle of a hot war against narco-terrorists, to make additional unspecified improvements in “human rights” before we sell our products into their country without paying taxes, while we continue to permit theirs to enter the U.S. with reduced tariffs or duty-free.

Huh?

The Colombian people elected President Uribe to fight the FARC, a bloody-minded drug/terror group that engages in kidnapping and murdering civilians, receives funding from Venezuela and uses Hizballah to launder its drug money. [Three American contractors were kidnapped five years ago, and only recently has the U.S. received evidence that they are still alive.] The U.S.-trained Colombian military has pushed the FARC into strategic retreat and President Uribe currently has a 70% approval rating among Colombians.

But like insurgencies everywhere – and the FARC is considered by the U.S. military to be the best armed and trained in South America – it can come back if conditions deteriorate, or Colombians believe the U.S. will abandon them in their fight. The Free Trade Agreement is validation of America’s commitment to Colombia in the long term, and it should be approved for that reason.

And because China, Venezuela and Iran are waiting in the wings for us to fail.