No matter what U.S. strategic interests may be in Colombia, this is an election year in America. And Democrats don’t want to upset their union and anti-trade allies.
What is it about Democrats and Hugo Chávez? Even as the Venezuelan strongman was threatening war last week against Colombia, Congress was threatening to hand him a huge strategic victory by spurning Colombia’s free trade overtures to the U.S.
This isn’t the first time Democrats have come to Mr. Chávez’s aid, but it would be the most destructive. The Venezuelan is engaged in a high-stakes competition over the political and economic direction of Latin America. He wants the region to follow his path of ever greater state control of the economy, while assisting U.S. enemies wherever he can. He’s already won converts in Bolivia and Ecuador, and he came far too close for American comfort in Mexico’s election last year.
Meanwhile, Colombian President Ãlvaro Uribe is embracing greater economic and political freedom. He has bravely assisted the U.S fight against narco-traffickers, and he now wants to link his country more closely to America with a free-trade accord. As a strategic matter, to reject Colombia’s offer now would tell everyone in Latin America that it is far more dangerous to trust America than it is to trash it.
Yet Democrats on Capitol Hill are doing their best to help Mr. Chávez prevail against Mr. Uribe. Even as Mr. Chávez was doing his war dance, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus was warning the White House not to send the Colombia deal to the Hill for a vote without the permission of Democratic leaders. He was seconded by Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel, who told Congress Daily that “they don’t have the votes for it, it’s not going to come on the floor,” adding that “what they [the White House] don’t understand it’s not the facts on the ground, it’s the politics that’s in the air.”Mr. Rangel is right about the politics. No matter what U.S. strategic interests may be in Colombia, this is an election year in America. And Democrats don’t want to upset their union and anti-trade allies. The problem is that the time available to pass anything this year is growing short. The closer the election gets, the more leverage protectionists have to run out the clock on the Bush Presidency. The deal has the support of a bipartisan majority in the Senate, and probably also in the House. Sooner or later the White House will have to force the issue.
Our guess is that Messrs. Baucus and Rangel understand the stakes and privately favor the accord. The bottleneck is Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is refusing to allow a vote under pressure from her left-wing Members. These Democrats deride any link between Hugo Chávez and trade as a “scare tactic,” as if greater economic prosperity had no political consequences. “President Bush’s recent fear-mongering on trade shows just how desperate he is to deliver one final victory for multinational corporations,” declared Illinois Democrat Phil Hare, who is one of Ms. Pelosi’s main trade policy deputies.
March 10, 2008 - 12:23 PM on March 10th, 2008
The demacrook party is not about to change their ideas and upset the corupt unions and liberal left-wing groups that donate to them
March 11, 2008 - 12:30 AM on March 11th, 2008
The leftists in the Democratic party are doing everything they can to wreck this economy. I wonder how they’re going to blame the coming economic collapse and the resulting revolution on the Republicans. Oh wait, I wouldn’t worry about that much if I were them. I’d be more worried about the mob outside my house with pitchforks and torches. These morons think that, because they’ve managed to steal inordinate amounts of money through their political maneuvering that, they’ll be immune from the civil unrest. If this country goes into a revolution, I wouldn’t bet a plug nickel on their surviving it. Except for the fact that they’ll be on their private jets to Costa Rica to ride it out. The Clintons have built a beautiful resort style mansion there. I wonder if they furnished it with all of the stuff they stole from the White House last time they were there?
March 11, 2008 - 01:49 PM on March 11th, 2008
They (like HilLiary) have already blamed it on the Bush Admin. And if a Democrite gets into the White House, they’ll call anything that happens the Bush recession. Watch and see…
But frankly, the Bush Admin and Congress have utterly mismanaged the nation domestically.