THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT

Still hope for Colombia trade bill

Despite what most of the media describe as a late-breaking Democratic move to kill the U.S.-Colombia free trade deal, and most Washington analysts' forecasts that the bill is doomed, I'm not that pessimistic.

Before we get into why I think there is a chance the trade deal may survive, let's look at the facts.

The Bush administration submitted the bill on Monday under a ''fast track'' mechanism that gives Congress 90 days to ratify the trade agreement. Democratic majority leaders had requested Bush to wait until the two sides could work out their differences over what to do about the killings of Colombia's union leaders, and trade adjustment measures for U.S. workers.

The White House had gone out in full force in recent weeks to push for the deal's congressional approval.

In addition to President Bush, virtually all members of his Cabinet, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have been publishing opinion pieces and giving speeches to drum up grass-root support for the deal. The White House has sent eight Cabinet-led delegations to Colombia in recent months and taken 55 members of Congress to that country.

''The level of effort has been unprecedented,'' Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade Chris Padilla told me in a telephone interview.

Still, most congressional watchers were not too optimistic, especially following Democratic candidates Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's strong criticism of the U.S.-Colombia deal.

Michael Shifter, a Colombia expert with the Inter-American Dialogue think tank who supports the free trade deal, gives it a 25 percent chance of passing. Shifter noted that the bill was submitted to Congress in an election year, amid an anti-free trade political climate, and against the will of the House Democratic leadership.

''This will make the Democrats more confrontational and antagonistic,'' he said. ``It's seen as a Bush effort to embarrass the Democrats and expose them as the party that turns its back on Latin America and is against trade.''

Adam Isaacson, a Colombia expert at the Center on International Policy, who describes himself as ''ambivalent'' about the trade deal, gives it also a 25 percent chance.

''Any controversial trade agreement with any country in an election year in a recession would be in trouble, and Colombia's is particularly controversial,'' he said. 'They would have had a much better chance in 2009: by then, there may be a couple of dozen of convictions [in union leaders' murder cases] which would have weakened the Democrats' argument.''

Myles Frechette, a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia who supports the deal, gives it a 30 percent chance. ''The two leading Democratic candidates are feeding this falsehood that free trade has been bad for American jobs, and many democrats who don't know much about trade are just not going to vote for it,'' he said.

Thomas ''Mac'' McLarty, former Clinton administration chief of staff who supports Clinton's candidacy and backs the U.S.-Colombia free trade deal, told me he gives it a 50-50 chance of congressional approval. While a majority of House members support the deal in private, the political environment makes it difficult, he said.

On Wednesday, after I had completed my roundup of forecasts, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, announced that she will ''remove'' the 90-day timetable under which Congress must take up trade bills, leaving the Colombia deal in legislative limbo. The White House reacted angrily, and most press reports said the Colombia trade deal is doomed.

My opinion: Based on what I heard late Wednesday from well-placed congressional sources, I'm not so pessimistic.

If Pelosi had wanted to kill the trade bill, she would have put it to a vote right away, and her party would have defeated it.

Instead, the Democrats have in effect postponed the vote until after the November elections.

Pelosi's move may be a face-saving way to pass the bill in late November or December, before the end of this Congress, if Bush can show some progress on Colombia's prosecutions of human rights abusers or make a concession on trade adjustment measures for U.S. workers.

I hope I'm not too naive on this, but the Democrats would be making a big mistake by turning their back on Latin America, and on new markets for U.S. exports, and I don't think they will.