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 Subject: U.S.-Colombia Trade Deal Working families scored a victory when Congress derailed the U.S.-Colombia trade agreement. Unfortunately, this latest in a series of bad trade deals may be resurrected. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership refused in April to let President Bush ram this job-killing deal through Congress. They voted to remove it from Fast Track rules, which eliminated the 90-day deadline to vote it up or down. However, Speaker Pelosi’s courageous step doesn’t necessarily kill the deal. Companies such as Wal-Mart, Citigroup and FedEx are pressuring lawmakers to approve it. The Colombian government has already spent more than $1 million for lobbyists and public relations agencies to push for the deal. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe—whose own family member and close ally was arrested on April 22 for supporting paramilitary death squads—has been traveling throughout North America to make his case. And the Bush Administration says it’s willing to horse trade over the agreement. In the face of such pressure, the deal could be brought up again this summer or even after the November elections—when voters can no longer express their disapproval at the ballot box and hold members of Congress accountable. Americans should fight this deal if they care about their jobs, if they care about the U.S. economy, or if they care about how workers are treated anywhere in the world. This pact rewards the government of President Alvaro Uribe, which has been linked to paramilitary death squads that killed more than 2,500 trade union members. More than 50 members of Colombia’s Congress are either in jail or being investigated for colluding with the death squads. The deal itself is nothing but a series of giveaways and protections for multinational corporations. It provides incentives to outsource even more jobs that belong to U.S. workers. Just like NAFTA, CAFTA and China, this deal will wipe out jobs, lower wages, add to our trade deficit and destroy our manufacturing base. It’s not just a few blue-collar workers who are hurt by these so-called “free trade agreements.” This is not the time to pass more of the same bad trade policies. Paychecks for most Americans are shrinking or stagnating. The cost of food and fuel continue to skyrocket, and housing values erode because of the foreclosure crisis. Instead of calling for more bad trade deals, this Administration needs to take action to improve the economy and the crisis workers face. The Democratic leadership has been demanding that the Bush Administration work with them to provide relief to workers, but unfortunately this President seems to mistakenly think that passing more bad FTAs is the solution. The argument that lowering tariffs for U.S. producers will stimulate our economy is bogus. Colombia’s middle class is too small to buy an appreciable amount of our manufactured goods. Also, the problem with the Colombia FTA is not the cuts in tariffs. The Teamsters support getting export access to markets. Actually, this can be done in less than 50 pages. The problem is the hundreds of pages of corporate giveaways and incentives to offshore that are in the FTA. Also, while it is a fact that some in U.S. agribusiness would benefit, we must ask ourselves at what cost? The deal would undermine efforts to wean Colombia’s farmers from growing coca. Colombia’s farmers can’t possibly compete against subsidized U.S. farm products. The U.S.-Colombia deal would force them back to coca production. We saw more than one million Mexican farmers pushed out of their farms as a result of NAFTA. This will likely happen again. Americans need trade policies that create jobs. They don’t need deals that destroy jobs, promote drug trafficking and reward violence against workers. |
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