A Hard Sell for a Trade Deal
Roll Call Staff
CARTAGENA, Colombia — Less than 24 hours before President Bush announced that he would send Congress a politically charged free-trade agreement with Colombia, nine U.S. House Members gathered in this Caribbean port city to hear a pitch for the pact directly from the country’s leader, Álvaro Uribe.
In a 17th-century Spanish colonial fort on the grounds of the country’s Naval Academy — part of a presidential retreat described as the Camp David of Colombia — the Members gathered for a private session with Uribe and his cabinet officials.
The Congressional delegation’s two-day, two-city visit was organized by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative — only the second CODEL USTR ever has sponsored — and is part of an unprecedented, months-long lobbying effort by the Bush administration to convince the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass the trade deal.
The free-trade pact faces intense opposition from U.S. unions, liberal activists and human rights organizations, who argue that despite progress in its criminal justice system and large-scale improvements in Colombia’s economy and crime rates, the country has not yet done enough to curb violence, particularly against union organizers.
Bush will formally deliver legislation on the agreement today, touching off a firestorm from opponents and a full-scale push by supporters. Already, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) have said that the move, which comes without Democratic leaders’ approval, will jeopardize the trade deal’s prospects for passage.
On the other side, House Republicans are mobilizing. Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) on Wednesday is convening a meeting in the Capitol with business groups and K Street lobbyists to gin up support for the agreement.
On board a military C-40 aircraft on the return trip back to Andrews Air Force Base, on the eve of Bush’s announcement, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab described the administration’s undertaking, like the CODEL itself, as “all hands on deck.”
All told, Schwab said, 55 Members as well as their aides have been ferried to Colombia as part of USTR, Office of National Drug Control Policy, State, Agriculture, and Commerce department trips. She said the purpose of such jaunts is to give Members the opportunity to see firsthand what’s really going on in Colombia and to better understand what the implications of the free-trade agreement are.
“Compared to [the Central American Free Trade Agreement] and the other agreements, this is the biggest commitment I have ever seen from the administration,” said Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), who supports the Colombian pact and participated in the CODEL.
“I don’t know how the administration turns the volume up farther,” Brady added. “The question is: Is Congress listening with an open mind and are we willing to — despite union opposition — to debate, at least debate, and vote this agreement one way or the other because it just seems un-American not to give us a chance to have a say in this.”
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), one of two Democrats on the CODEL along with Rep. Bob Etheridge (N.C.), said that he found Uribe to be “a good president who is leading Colombia from a period of violence to a period of peace.”
Even so, the trip left his vote on the FTA unchanged at “no.”
The delegation also met with two Colombian labor union leaders in Cartagena who oppose the pact. Johnson said he found those men “most impressive.”
“They spoke with such passion, and apparently their lives are in danger every day because of their union activities,” he said. “And their safety is not guaranteed by the government. It appears that signals are still going out to the paramilitary groups to continue to intimidate the union organizers based on the bogus claims that they are allied with the leftist guerrillas.”
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