President Bush said this week that one of the best ways the U.S. can help Colombia as it deals with a new crisis involving neighboring Venezuela is to pass legislation implementing the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently sent armed forces to the border with Colombia and suspended most two-way trade in response to a Colombian anti-terrorist raid into Ecuador. According to Reuters, Chavez also said he will “consider government takeovers of Colombian companies in Venezuela.”
The Bush administration has repeatedly emphasized that the Colombia FTA is important to U.S. national security interests in the region, and it has pointed to this week’s developments to bolster that argument. Colombia is one of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America, officials say, and the FTA will help strengthen it against Chavez, who has been consistently antagonistic toward both the U.S. and Colombia. For example, in recent years he has withdrawn Venezuela from a regional economic organization to protest the U.S.-Colombia FTA and recruited a number of other countries to join a trade bloc opposed to the Free Trade Area of the Americas backed by the U.S. Earlier this year he threatened to cut cross-border trade with Colombia over a diplomatic dispute and accused Colombia of conspiring with the U.S. to provoke Venezuela into a war.
But the White House is portraying this week’s crisis as more serious, given the involvement of Venezuela’s military, and as further evidence that the U.S. needs to support Colombia against Chavez’s destabilizing influence. “My message to the United States Congress is that this trade agreement is more than a matter of smart economics, it is a matter of national security,” Bush said. “If we fail to approve this agreement, we will let down our close ally, we will damage our credibility in the region, and we will embolden the demagogues in our hemisphere.” However, a Washington Post article quoted an unnamed Democratic congressional aide as saying, “The two issues are separate -- the regional diplomatic and military crisis will not be solved by approving the Colombia free-trade agreement.”
The current situation has prompted speculation that the White House could finally submit legislation to implement the Colombia FTA to Congress in the near future. That move has been delayed while administration officials have attempted to persuade Democratic leaders to allow such a bill to go forward. But a Congress Daily article reports that the idea of sending the bill to Capitol Hill is now “under serious discussion,” not only due to recent events but also to ensure that lawmakers vote on the agreement before the presidential and congressional campaigns heat up this fall.
It remains to be seen whether Democrats would be willing to let the FTA proceed and, if so, what their price for doing so might be. In the Senate, that price is likely to be an expansion of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has said must be approved before any FTA will be considered. It is not clear, however, whether a similar arrangement can be worked out in the House or, if not, what the repercussions might be if the White House submits the bill without the consent of congressional leadership.
World Trade/Interactive
