White House says Colombia trade deal not stalled

The White House said Tuesday that negotiations with Congress over a Colombia free trade agreement are not stalled but acknowledged that trade deals are difficult to hammer out.

“I wouldn’t say it’s stalled,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Florida, where President Bush will speak on trade.

{mosads}However, Fratto noted that “trade deals are never easy,” adding that they always involve “very difficult, always emotional issues.”

“It’s always easy to point to the costs of trade; when you see a factory close down because of increased competition, that's a very acute problem that you can see and visualize, whereas the benefits to trade are broadly spread throughout the economy, where increased economic opportunity across the breadth of the economy goes up and the availability of higher-quality, lower-cost products goes up,” he said.

Fratto also stated that Bush is “very, very concerned” that the U.S. could “turn away from our traditional openness to trade and investment …”

He noted, however, that the White House believes “that we will be able to find accommodation with congressional leaders to get it done, and we think it's important enough to do that.”

Fratto noted that trade adjustment assistance, which provides training and other help to workers who lose their jobs because of trade, is part of the discussions. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has called for an overhaul of the program.

“We support trade adjustment assistance. We think it's important,” Fratto stated. “We think it's important that it works, and that it's well-funded, and that it does the job that it's intended to do, which is to help those affected by trade to be able to find other employment if they are adversely affected by trade.”