Colombia Trade Deal Loses Key Support

June 28, 2011

The Wall Street Journal

ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON

The top Democrat on a key House trade panel whipped up a new furor over three stalled trade deals Monday when he said he wouldn't support a pact with Colombia if the White House and Republicans refuse to include references to pro-labor provisions negotiated by the Obama administration.

The move by Rep. Sander Levin (D., Mich.), the ranking member of the House Ways and Means committee, appeared late Monday to have rallied skeptical Democrats against the Colombia pact. Reps. George Miller (D., Calif.) and James McGovern (D., Mass.) issued a statement also condemning the administration's stance on the Colombia bill.

The White House and Republican leaders continue to say they have the votes in each chamber needed to pass long-stalled trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. But repeated disagreements over the details of legislation to ratify the pacts reduces the chances that the bills will pass before 2012 when Congress likely won't consider controversial legislation in an election year.

Mr. Levin's support is seen as critical for rallying Democratic support for all three pacts. He announced his support for the Korea deal last year, after the White House and Seoul added provisions protecting the U.S. auto industry.

Mr. Levin said that in the negotiations over the agreements, the GOP is preventing a worker-protection plan from being written into legislation for the Colombia trade deal, and the White House—which spent months negotiating the plan with Bogota—had "acquiesced."

Republican leaders and White House trade officials said Monday the implementing legislation to ratify the trade deals was not an appropriate place to include the labor provisions of the Colombia deal, which outline legal requirements in Colombia but has nothing to do with U.S. law.

Levin aides working on trade issues disagreed, saying there is precedent for including such language in implementing bills.

Republican leadership aides said they have Democratic support for their effort to exclude the pro-labor language from the Colombia bill from Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Aides to Mr. Baucus said he has consistently pressed for the labor provisions, and they would be included if it were only up to Democrats, but Republicans refuse to do so.

Republicans and the White House are at loggerheads over the administration's demand that Congress renew the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, at a cost of $1 billion a year, along with passing the three deals. Mr. Levin called opposition to the TAA by Republicans, some of whom have supported it in the past, "disgraceful."

A Republican leadership aide said GOP negotiators opposed including the text of the labor-action plan in the Colombia legislation, adding that they were joined by some Democrats in their opposition.

Mr. Levin's comments shed light on the heavy political horse-trading taking place as the White House and pro-trade legislators scramble to move the deals through Congress before the August recess.

The Obama administration in April negotiated a revised agreement that required Colombia to undertake an action plan to strengthen laws protecting labor organizers and union leaders.

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