Robert D. Novak: Will Democrats heed labor's demand on trade pact?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Robert+D.+Novak%3A+Will+Democrats+heed+labor's+demand+on+trade+pact%3F&articleId=222edf7d-c5e7-4b69-8769-6b274296f715

By ROBERT D. NOVAK

PRESIDENT BUSH next week will send Congress a trade agreement forcing Democrats to make an unpleasant choice. Will they follow the bidding of organized labor and reject a pact negotiated more than a year and a half ago with the country's strongest ally and best customer in South America?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not want to make her members cast votes on the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. It is unconditionally opposed by the AFL-CIO, which is uninterested in negotiating changes. But to forget about a vote this year as Pelosi wants would be akin to an outright rejection in its international implications.

It would humiliate Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a free-trader and a bulwark against the spreading influence in Latin America of Venezuela's leftist strongman, President Hugo Chavez.

The difficulty in getting only about 30 House Democrats to provide the needed margin of victory reflects the Democratic Party's abandonment of free trade over the past half-century. Less obvious, labor's intense opposition shows that the AFL-CIO no longer leads the way against the far left throughout the world, as it did under George Meany and Lane Kirkland in bygone years. Their successors are not concerned with the prospect of Chavez, allied with communist Cuba, dominating the Western Hemisphere.

Colombia has fought a long, successful battle against leftist guerillas supported and financed by Chavez. As a faithful U.S. ally, Uribe has been astounded by the fate of the trade agreement. Since it was signed in November 2006, not one congressional hearing has been held. To please Democrats, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab has gone back to Bogota and won changes on labor and environmental issues. Even now, she is willing to add trade adjustment subsidies for displaced workers in quest of a bipartisan deal. But nothing budges labor.

Schwab's pleas to Democrats are about bread and butter. The agreement removes a $200,000 tariff on Caterpillar off-road tractors going into Colombia, producing thousands of jobs for Americans. Under the Andean Trade Preference Act, recently extended by Congress, Colombia has nearly total duty-free access into the United States, but the AFL-CIO insists it cannot approve the agreement because of the way Colombian unions are persecuted.

FULL article at link.

[whistle]

1. Is Robert Novak sober?

[PA Democrat]

2. Novak showed up at Obama's town hall meeting last week in Greensburg , PA.

He was sitting in the media section all by his lonesome self, reading a book. He sucked all the light out of the room within a 10 foot radius.

[Benhurst]

3. Columbia is our strongest ally in South America? That says it all.

:puke: