Thursday 24 January 2008
Bogota, Colombia - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to Colombia accompanied by Democratic lawmakers is the latest, and highest-profile, visit in the White House's bid to revive a trade deal with the world's most dangerous country for labor organizing.
It will be a tough sell.
Free trade has never been a popular issue among Democrats. But the timing of this deal couldn't be worse: in the middle of a presidential campaign with the country jittery about a possible recession. All three Democratic front-runners have come out against eliminating trade barriers for Colombia.
The White House is pushing for approval of the agreement over the opposition of the majority Democratic leadership in Congress, which says President Alvaro Uribe hasn't done enough to curb violence against trade unionists.
More than 700 union members have been killed in Colombia since 2001, according to the government, at a rate that regularly exceeds the total number murdered annually in the rest of the world combined.
Although the killings have fallen sharply since Uribe took office in 2002 - to 25 last year - only a small fraction of the cases have ever been solved.
Ahead of Thursday's visit by Rice, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America said Wednesday that as Washington's staunchest ally in a "tough region" and caretaker in the war on drugs, Colombia deserves strengthened support.
"We see the free trade agreement not just as a trade policy with Colombia," the official, Thomas A. Shannon, told reporters in Washington. "We see it as part of a broader social and economic development policy and as necessary for consolidating the democratic gains that Colombia has made."
Uribe has also pressed hard for the agreement, making several trips to Capitol Hill last year. His administration has also hired two lobbying firms with close ties to congressional Democrats, at a rate of $80,000 a month.
As in the seven previous visits made by U.S. lawmakers led by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and other high-ranking administration officials since June, the focus of this mission is the city of Medellin - which has seen a dramatic turnaround under Uribe after decades of drug-fueled violence.
Rice and 10 lawmakers - all of them Democrats - are to meet separately there with unionists opposed to and in favor of the trade deal, as well as tour a flower farm that would be among the biggest beneficiaries of permanent free trade status. On Friday, they will meet with Uribe.
Despite the full-court press, there's no indication a trade deal is imminent.
A Democratic staffer, who follows the issue closely and spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to comment publicly, told The Associated Press "no vote on Colombia is planned."
U.S. labor unions, major contributors to the Democratic presidential campaigns, have also vowed to fight the charm offensive.
"If you want to help Colombia, there's a lot better ways than sending Sec. Rice," Jeff Vogt, global economic policy specialist for the AFL-CIO, told the AP. "The Democrats seem united over deep-rooted concerns about continuing violence and impunity in the country."
The U.S. Congress did ratify a free trade pact with Peru last year, but Vogt noted that it didn't get a majority of House Democrats' votes.
Goods from Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia already enjoy duty-free access to the United States under the Andean Trade Promotion Agreement, which was implemented 17 years ago to wean their economies off the drug trade.
But those trade privileges expire next month and Shannon on Wednesday refused to say whether the administration would seek renewal for all four countries or only the two - Peru and Colombia - that signed free trade pacts with Washington.
U.S. officials have argued that Colombia should be rewarded for pursuing pro-market economic policies at a time when they're under attack from other countries in the region, especially oil-rich Venezuela, led by President Hugo Chavez.
But concerns over a possible recession, soaring U.S. trade deficits and the loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs since 2000 may trump the Bush administration's regional agenda.
"It's the politics that makes a vote impossible - not changing people's minds about Colombia," said Michael Shifter, an analyst at the Washington-based Inter American Dialogue.
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