Dems To Sidetrack Colombia ‘Free Trade’ Pact
By Mark Gruenberg, PAI Staff Writer
WASHINGTON (PAI)--Leading congressional Democrats plan to sidetrack anti-worker 
GOP President George W. Bush’s “free trade” pact with Colombia, at least until 
trade adjustment assistance, which aids workers who lose jobs to unfair foreign 
imports, is renewed. Even then, Dems say, the Colombia pact, similar treaties 
with South Korea and Panama, and renewing presidential “fast track” trade pact 
power are all unlikely.
The Democratic statements came after Bush, in his State of the Union address, 
put the Colombia pact first in line. He did not mention the murder of thousands 
of unionists by right-wing government-backed “paramilitaries,” whom U.S.-based 
multinationals often paid for “protection.” The deaths are among the key reasons 
unions oppose legislation implementing the Colombia trade pact, which lacks 
labor rights.
Instead, Bush claimed that passing the Colombia pact would send a signal the 
U.S. is willing to aid Latin American democracies via trade pacts that he claimed would benefit Latin American 
workers, in contrast to what he called anti-democratic forces. That was a veiled 
swipe at Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce U.S. critic.
Leaders of the Democratic-run 110th Congress brushed off Bush’s argument. House 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) 
said Democrats had “widespread concern” about the murders of the unionists.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), whose panel 
handles trade pacts and who pushed through the Peru FTA--which had weak worker 
rights written into it--said Bush “used trade policy as a political tool…while 
failing to confront the problems facing the American worker in the global 
economy.”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who heads the other 
congressional panel that deals with trade pacts and issues, said renewing trade 
adjustment assistance comes first. The program expired Dec. 31, and new Senate 
Minority Whip John Kyl (R-Ariz.) single-handedly blocked its renewal. 
"Let me be clear. This task and no other must be our nation's trade policy 
priority. Until we accomplish it, other issues on today's trade agenda must take 
a back seat," Baucus told the National Press Club on Jan. 30. That’s because 
U.S. workers are anxious about the impact of trade and globalization on their 
jobs, he said.
Last year, the House approved legislation extending and expanding the TAA 
program, opening it to service workers who lose their jobs to unfair foreign 
competition and to workers who lose jobs when their services are no longer 
needed by workers who lost their jobs to unfair imports. So, for example, TAA 
would become available to workers at a diner next to a textile mill that closes 
due to imports. Right now, only the textile mill workers, and factory workers in 
general, are eligible for TAA. 
Baucus also wants to double annual TAA money for retraining to $440 million, 
expand a tax credit--first inserted by Steel Worker lobbying--to help trade-dislocated workers pay for health insurance, and extend TAA 
to workers who lose jobs regardless of whether the imports come from a nation 
with a free trade pact with the U.S., or not.