Bush Doubles Down on Trade With Colombia

Among our allies few are more important or underappreciated than Colombia. That's because its President Alvaro Uribe has done a miraculous job in turning around a country ruled by drug lords when he took over. While there is still plenty of work left to do there, what Uribe has accomplished in his term is transformational not only internally, but in the region and the world. Yet the fragile gains are easily wasted if the country doesn't see some economic benefit from his tough stance on corruption. There is only so long that folks will want to go straight if they don't see an economic benefit. That is why a trade pact, lingering in the legislature for several years, is so vital not only economically but geopolitically.

This week President Bush doubled down on this trade pact now in limbo.

Rarely have we seen Bush go for broke as he did Wednesday, sending word he'd make Congress take a stand on the Colombia pact. For two years, Congress has dithered about its passage, constantly changing the terms of approval, and in the end just stalling because most members can't justify openly scuppering it.

But Bush called their bluff. "Time is running out," he said in an address to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, "and we must not allow delay to turn into inaction."
Wise words, because America's economy and strategic interests have been held hostage to partisan politics for too long.

There's no good reason not to pass the Colombia pact. Colombia is our best ally in the hemisphere and, coming up from a long war, has a sharply improving democracy and human rights record. "No nation has ever improved as this one has," drug czar John Walters said in a recent interview with IBD.

Right now it's under threat from FARC, an al-Qaida-like transnational terrorist gang bankrolled with $300 million from Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Both FARC and Chavez fear the prosperity and the American alliance that will come of this treaty.

While much of the dynamics has to do with mind numbing legislative maneuvers, the bottom line is that Bush is calling out the Democrats in a bold attempt to get this pact passed. Colombia can become a counter balance to anti American leftists in Bolivia and Venezuela, but that will only come if the political reforms that Uribe has started are followed by an economic awakening. If the economy doesn't prosper over the next several years, the folks will wind up right back in the arms of FARC and the other drug lords. This trade pact could play a vital role in that and Bush knows it. This maneuver seems destined for failure and so I hope that Bush has something up his sleeve. The situation remains fluid and I will follow.