Big Labor's Hold On a Columbia Pact
According to the Washington Post:
President Bush will send Congress a trade agreement next week forcing Democrats to make an unpleasant choice. Will they do the bidding of organized labor and reject a pact negotiated more than a year and a half ago with the country's strongest ally and best customer in South America?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not want to make her members cast votes on the Colombian free-trade agreement. It is unconditionally opposed by the AFL-CIO, which is uninterested in negotiating changes. But to forget about a vote this year, as Pelosi wants, would be akin to an outright rejection in its international implications. It would humiliate Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, a free-trader and a bulwark against the spreading influence in Latin America of Venezuela's leftist strongman, President Hugo Chávez...click to continue
