A week after they revoked fast track treatment for a bill to implement the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, House Democrats were asked to detail the specific issues they want to see progress on in order to move the FTA forward. The inquiry indicates that Republicans are still trying to get the agreement through Congress this year despite their frustration at how Democrats have handled the process so far.
Republicans continued this week to criticize Democrats for indefinitely delaying a vote on the Colombia FTA bill. In an April 14 statement President Bush said the bill is “dead” unless House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., “schedules a definite vote” on it, adding that “it’s not in our country’s interest that we stiff an ally like Colombia.” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino added that the Democrats’ arguments for “why they cannot support a Colombia free trade agreement right now … are flimsy and they do not hold water.”
Pelosi responded that Democrats are ready to work with the administration on the Colombia FTA but that the domestic economy needs to be addressed first. “We’ve worked with the President before on the stimulus package, on passing the Peru Free Trade Agreement earlier in this term of Congress, and we believe it is possible to bring the Colombia Free Trade Agreement to the floor under the proper circumstance,” she said in an April 14 statement. “This has to be done … based on the economic security of America’s workers here in our country. We ask the President to once again bring his people to the table so we can move forward.”
But it remains unclear exactly what Pelosi and other Democrats want before agreeing to schedule a vote on the FTA. As a result, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, sent Pelosi a letter April 15 asking her to detail these demands by April 22. Boehner wrote that the list of issues on which Pelosi is seeking to “leverage” action by delaying an FTA vote “is both broad and vague, causing some to question whether you are simply using these demands as a pretext for blocking the trade agreement altogether.” Pelosi has previously indicated that aid for trade-affected workers, housing policy, unemployment insurance, infrastructure and alternative energy are among Democrats’ concerns.
In related news, a group of nearly three dozen Democratic former government officials and members of Congress issued an open letter this week urging that the Colombia FTA bill be approved this year. This agreement “is in both our vital national security and economic interests,” the letter said. Referring to opponents’ arguments that more must be done to reduce anti-labor union violence in Colombia before a vote can be held, the letter asserted that “defeating the FTA would hardly promote cooperation needed to advance the human rights and anti-violence campaign.” The letter added that there is “every reason to believe” that U.S. exports to Colombia will increase once the FTA takes effect, which will benefit U.S. workers and companies and “help our balance of trade.”
World Trade/Interactive
