HOW CONGRESS FAILED TO VOTE FOR THE COLOMBIAN FREE TRADE AND WHY IT HAS A NEGATIVE IMPACT ON NATIONAL SECURITY

HOW CONGRESS FAILED TO VOTE FOR THE COLOMBIAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT AND WHY IT HAS A NEGATIVE IMPACT ON NATIONAL SECURITY

MARICRUZ MaGOWAN

July 22, 2008

1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND                                            

2. THE ENVIRONMENT IN CONGRESS WHEN THE COLOMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT PROPOSAL

WAS UP FOR CONGRESSIONAL VOTE                                    

3. THE MAIN PLAYERS AND THEIR PERCEIVED AGENDAS         

4. WHAT KEY FACTORS AND INTERACTIONS PREVENTED REACHING A VOTE ON THE FTA WITH COLOMBIA                       

5. CONCLUSION            

1. Introduction and Background

On 22 November, 2006, following at least 2 years of internal negotiations between senior staff from the Executive and Legislative staffs, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative John Veroneau signed the U.S. – Colombian Free Trade Agreement on behalf of the United States. From November 2002 and September 2007, under pressure from congressional Democrats, the Bush administration renegotiated the agreement to include more stringent environmental and labor standards. Later on, on April 7, 2008, President Bush sent this agreement to the House of Representatives with the hopes of reaching support and ratification in the U.S. Congress.

President George W. Bush sent this FTA under the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) or "fast track" authority rules in place.  Under this rule, the House had 60 days to give the agreement an up-or-down vote and the Senate had additional 30 days. The United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act was introduced as H.R.5724.[1] However in April 2008, the Democrats in the House stated that they had the constitutional right to remove the deadline imposed in the TPA only in the case of the U.S.-Colombia FTA.  This was House Resolution 1092, which passed on April 10, 2008 by 224 vs. 195.

In order to understand the connotations of this event, it is important to give an overview of the political scenario in Colombia before and during April 2008, mention the main provisions that this agreement contained, the environment that prevailed in the House at that time, the stakeholders and their perceived agendas, and finally to identify the key factors that were involved in this process.

Regarding Colombia’s political scenario, it is necessary to emphasize that this country’s problems are not related to their lack of democracy, because they have a long tradition of electing their presidents through a democratic process, but instead most of their problems stem from continuing violence and persistent drug trafficking since the 1960s.[2] There are three main groups who are held responsible for this pernicious environment: Two leftist guerrilla groups: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), both of which are regularly engaged in kidnapping and drug trade.  The rightist paramilitary groups are lead by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), also engaged in human rights violations and narcotics trafficking.

After September 11, 2001, the United States has increased authority to help Colombia in dealing with these issues while promoting economic growth, since both factors are intertwined.  In 2002, Congress granted increased flexibility to use U.S. Counterdrug funds under the umbrella of Plan Colombia.  In fact, the U.S. almost tripled its assistance by providing around $1.3 billion for these efforts.  This Plan was developed by former Colombian President Andrés Pastrana (1998 – 2002).  The problem is significant, Colombian narcotic smugglers provide around 80% of the world’s cocaine hydrochloride, and large quantities of high quality heroine.  A lot of these “exports” are directed to the United States.

Concerning the FTA with Colombia, it would eliminate duties on 80% of U.S. consumer and industrial exports to Colombia, and all tariffs within ten years.[3]  At present, Colombia benefits from trade preferences under the Andean Trade Preferences and Drug Eradication Act.[4] U.S. Colombia’s trade totaled more than $18 billion in 2007.

2. The environment in Congress when the Colombia Free Trade Agreement proposal was up for Congressional vote

On how Congress arrived to that situation Claude Barfield summarizes it by saying that, “as always in Washington, the course of events and trends that led to the current imbroglio is a tangled web of acrid partisan politics, genuine principles, and strategic considerations.”[5]

Barfield argues that this is not a new development in the trade area, although the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had the support of President Clinton, House Democrats voted against it.  Thus, when the Democrats took over Congress again – the 110^th Congress- a large majority of the freshman House Representatives, as many as 42, campaigned on an anti-trade agenda.

Since 2001, the Bush Administration has negotiated 14 FTAs and following negotiations with Democratic Congressional leaders, the Administration agreed to adopt and enforce five side labor trade agreements and seven multilateral environmental agreements.  The proposed trade agreement with Colombia was specially criticized by the Democrats on the grounds of reported violent acts against labor leaders.

Claude Barfield’s analysis of the standoff over Colombia, takes us back to November 2006, when the Colombia FTA was signed.  He states, along with other Republican House Representatives, such as Rep. Drier (R-CA), that the Bush Administration gave priority to this agreement, not only motivated for economic issues, but mainly in an effort to strengthen the political relationships between these two countries as recognition of the outstanding work the Administration of President Alvaro Uribe is doing in weakening the FARC.

According to Kevin Gallaher, from Tufts University, although the main argument used by the Democrats in the House was the fact that the US-Colombia FTA did not include provisions to protect labor laws and labor unionists from violence, he states that is not fully accurate.  The Agreement does include a bilateral enforceable obligation for both countries to adopt and maintain in their laws the core internationally recognized labor rights as stated in the 1998 International Labor Organization (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.   The agreement also contains commitments and cooperation to protect the environment, by requiring a public submission process with an independent secretariat for environmental matters to ensure that views of civil society are appropriately considered.

During the April 2008 deliberations, Rep. David Drier (R-CA),[6] stressed another important factor that refutes the Democrats in Congress’ assertions that they were surprised and pressured by the President to consider this Agreement when it was too early for this consideration and when not enough negotiations preceded this occasion.  Rep. Drier reminded other members of Congress that among other efforts, before the U.S.-Colombia Trade agreement came to the floor for a vote in the House, high ranking administration officials met with Congress 160 times, nearly 450 meetings since August of 2007 took place, and 55 Members of Congress traveled to Colombia to see the situation there for themselves.

In April 2008, the Rules Committee in the House, whose Chairwoman is Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D- NY ) stated that they had the constitutional right to remove the deadline imposed in the TPA, and they specified that they were applying this measure only in the case of the U.S.-Colombia FTA.   This change, made in April 10, 2008 set a precedent and a strong debate between the parties.  As Claude Barfield states that “no matter how our allies react to the Colombia spat, the politics of FTA passage may have been permanently changed.” President Bush also condemned this action by stating that “the message the Democrats sent today is that no matter how steadfastly you stand with us, we will turn our backs on you when it is politically convenient.” U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Susan Schwab called the action “unprecedented and unfair…upending decades of U.S. trade policy and U.S. trade law.”  The Democrats were also criticized by the press, including the Washington Post and by Fred Bergsten, head of the Peterson Institute, among other trade experts.

The Speaker of the House, Rep. Pelosi (D-CA) responded to these critics by arguing that “It’s all a question of who has the leverage,” she said. “We have taken the leverage from the executive office, and we have put it back in the hands of the American working families.” Barfield also argues that one of the President’s motivations to submit this FTA to Congress was his desire to enhance his trade legacy.  He believes that it was not a coincidence that Bush formally submitted the agreement on the last day that allowed the 90-day deadline to play out before Congress adjourns in the fall. 

3. The main players and their perceived agendas

It is safe to say that the key players have been President Bush and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).  Both of them had the support of key high ranking administration officials, several think tanks, democratic Latin American governments, and Senator and presidential candidate John McCain (R-AZ) as strong supporters to the President’s case.  On the other side, there is Senator and Presidential Candidate Barak Obama (D-IL) and other key Democratic Representatives, mainly from the House Committee on Rules supporting the Speaker of the House.

Regarding the US-Colombia FTA, Senator Obama stated that he was concerned about the reports coming from Colombia of the involvement of that Administration with human right violations and the suppression of workers.[7] Sen. Obama went even further, he stated, that if elected, he might reopen the world's largest trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. Sen. Obama believes that the pact should include new labor and environmental standards.[8]

According to the Chilean newspaper “El Mercurio,”[9] Sen. Obama told this newspaper, “I am for a free trade agreement with Peru, but oppose that of Colombia, until I am certain they are not killing union leaders. We must stop this kind of paramilitary activity.”

The Colombian government and their representatives in this agreement also played a role.  Colombian newspapers such as El Tiempo and El Espectador,[10] report that Colombia Trade Minister Luis Guillermo Plata is still felling optimistic, even after no vote was reached in the House about the Colombia FTA.  He and many in his government believe that the fact that the Colombia FTA was not entirely killed means that it could become a reality in the near future.   Minister Plata met with the Bush Administration, and Republican and Democratic staff members of the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee.

Likewise, Colombian Ambassador Carolina Barco told reporters she was optimistic about negotiations between the White House and Congress and that she believed that there will be an “appropriate” environment for a House vote on the trade pact.  She also informed the press that Colombia concluded a free trade deal with Canada in June.

Meanwhile, the Government of President Uribe has proved day after day that they are committed to create all kinds of economic incentives and even changed the country's laws to create a more secure investment environment.  Encouraging trade agreements is one of these approaches and the main goal is to increase the economic level of Colombian workers and drastically reduce or even eliminate the guerrillas that compromise and undermine their economic growth.  It is also worth to name other key Senators that publicly opposed this agreement, such as: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV).

On April 10, 2008 during the consideration of H.R. 5724, United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act at the House of Representatives[11], Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi appointed Rep. Henry Cuellar (D- TX) to act as Speaker Pro Tempore on that day.  The testimonies that were exchanged clearly identify the main players that led to the non-vote status of the U.S.-Colombia FTA.

Following is a summary of the most important comments made by the participants to this debate:

The Democrats:

House Democratic opponents of the agreement have been focused on Colombia’s human rights record, arguing that greater progress should be demanded before the FTA is approved. However, there is plenty of evidence from several media in Colombia and other Spanish-speaking countries, mainly the newspaper “El Pais,”[14] (Spain) that have been following these events for decades that assess that the attacks against human rights in Colombia are indiscriminate.  Supporters of the Colombia deal (including the editors of the staunchly Democratic New York Times) admit that violence remains too high in the war-torn country.  But they point to hugely positive trend lines since 2002, with kidnapping rates down by over 80 percent, overall homicide rates down by 40 percent, and killings of union leaders down from 196 in 2002 to 26 in 2007. Prosecutions and convictions have climbed steeply, and the government has generously funded a special protection program for both union and non-union citizens at risk, with over 9,000 currently enrolled.  In rebuttal, unions (and some Democrats) usually fudge the figures, looking at aggregate violence over the past decade, ignoring the trend lines, and citing individual recent killings.

In essence, the U.S.-Colombian free trade agreement has been held up by Congress over concerns about anti-labor violence in that country, even though Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has made striking progress in pacifying the drug-fueled conflict there, including a recent stunningly successful hostage rescue mission just hours after McCain's visit that liberated former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was kept by the FARC for over six years, along with other hostages that were kept captive, some of them for more than ten years.

In a few words, the waving of the TPA (Fast Track) was the most critical component in this chain of events.  C. Fred Bergsten,[15] President of the Petersen International Economics Institute, summarized the negative effects of this rule changing by saying, “By rejecting long-settled procedures that prevented Congressional sidetracking of trade deals agreed by fully authorized Presidents, it instantaneously destroyed the credibility of the United States as a negotiating partner in the eyes of the rest of the world. Unless reversed soon, the House action will severely damage both the US economy and US foreign policy.”

And what is the most direct impact on national security? In Colombia the health of the economy is heavily dependent on trade with other nations, especially developed countries like the U.S. Decreasing economic growth in Colombia translates into more than the regular unwanted impacts, it also creates strong incentives, via lack of capital and excess of labor supply, to empower the terrorists groups, especially the FARC that has been efficiently and systematically using poverty levels, and high unemployment rates of men, women, and children as recruitment and brainwashing tools to increase its power. 

One clear example is the case of Medellin, one of the largest cities in Colombia, once the cradle of cocaine production and smuggling, Medellin went through a period of economic growth under the auspices of the Colombian Government and with the sponsorship and financial and technical aid -including direct trade deals- provided by the U.S.  In the 1990s, exports to the United States increased due to temporary trade preferences to Colombia, allowing many of its products to enter the world's largest market duty-free. This increase became even more significant after 2002, when Washington expanded that agreement to include Colombia's all-important textile sector. These activities created tens of thousands of jobs and turned Medellin into a model of the healing power of liberalized trade.

To put it in numbers, in Colombia in1991, the annual murder rate was 381 per 100,000 people, practically a virtual war zone. In 2001, it was 174 per 100,000 and last year, it fell to 26 per 100,000, which is lower than the murder rate in Washington, DC.[16]

It is not far from the truth to state that failing to enter into a FTA with Colombia will only make the FARC stronger and will allow Hugo Chavez, another opportunity to create political and social alliances with international terrorist groups that are part of an international network with alliances stretched well beyond Latin America, and whose ultimate goal does not stop at destroying the stability of Colombia, and other neighboring countries, but to become a permanent and real threat to the national security of the United States.

[16] “Sustaining the Medellin Article. Colombia Struggles to Hold on Benefits from Globalization.” Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, July 11, 2008; Page A01