Stalling Free Trade Won't Work

Investor's Business Daily

Congress: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bid to stall the Colombia free-trade pact into oblivion is a card she has played before. This time it won't fool anyone. In fact, it may backfire

It sent shock waves across the globe Thursday that the Speaker of the House could kick the America's best Latin American ally in the face as Pelosi did, altering House rules to end a timeline for a treaty vote. Oh, she assured Colombia it was "nothing personal," hoped it wouldn't be "misconstrued" and added that Democrats are "ready to work with" the president to bring a vote to the floor.

But the Big Labor bosses on whose behalf she was acting are on record as being implacably opposed to the pact, no matter how far either Bush or Colombia yield to their demands. That means America's businesses all lose.

Exaggeration? Check out what they're saying:

"The AFL-CIO remains unalterably opposed to passage of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement," wrote AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney, in a Nov. 8 letter to Congress.

Meanwhile, Inter Press Services quoted AFL-CIO Policy Director Thea Lee on April 8 as being against compensatory measures: "There's nothing that could be in the Trade Adjustment Assistance program that in our view would be considered an adequate trade-off for the Colombia agreement," she said. "We're not looking for a deal. Period."

With union bosses like that pulling Pelosi's strings, it's no surprise President Bush doesn't believe her claims of good intentions. "That bill is dead unless the speaker schedules a definitive vote," Bush said Monday.

It's not just that Pelosi's beholden to Big Labor.

Pelosi has been adding new demands for costly spending programs unrelated to trade — including mortgage aid, another "stimulus package" and new infrastructure spending (a sop to the AFL-CIO) — and is using Colombia's pact as "leverage."

She has a history of doing this. The Colombia pact passed in 2006 after all the normal legislative processes, including Congressional input, and the deal was sealed. But in 2007, Democrats said they weren't satisfied — so back to the drawing board, which forced Colombia to change provisions on labor and environmental rules. Colombia patiently went along to make the Democrats happy.

Now, the revised pact still isn't good enough. New objections have arisen, along with Pelosi's new pork wish list.

It's obvious this is a game of legislative rope-a-dope, and Pelosi will keep making demands, get them, promise a vote and then ask for more. The game is obvious to President Bush, who says it "stiffs" our ally and he wants it to stop. But it ought to be obvious to Pelosi, too, and there are signs that perhaps she over-reached, politically speaking.

Every major editorial page in America has endorsed the Colombia free-trade pact — even the lone holdout among the majors, the New York Times, on Saturday. Newspapers in smaller cities like Harrisonburg, Va., Knoxville, Tenn., and Corpus Christi, Texas, as well as Rust Belt dailies like Ohio's Cleveland Plain Dealer, all call for the pact's passage. So do two influential left-wing blogs. The Latino vote is starting to shift. The New York Sun interviewed Colombian-Americans in a big Queens community and found many of the staunch Democrats were shifting their allegiance to John McCain. Similar moves have been seen in Miami. With Mexico's government openly calling for approval of the Colombia free-trade pact, this could spill over into the broader Latino vote. The New York Times reported that many House Democrats aren't happy with Pelosi's shenanigans and she now faces a House revolt on trade. Responsible Democrats looking out for their districts have their limits, too. Business groups, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the Consumer Electronics Association are preparing to lobby hard. CEA's first ad features a photo of Hugo Chavez hugging Fidel Castro, saying "Please reject the Colombia free-trade agreement." If that growing pressure isn't enough to call Pelosi on her bid to string Colombia along and rake spoils, nothing is. Unless she gives a date for a vote, she's killing the pact and hoping that America forgets. We think she's in for an unpleasant surprise.