Three free trade deals cleared by House panel

Three pending free trade deals cleared a House panel on Wednesday, setting them up for probable floor action next week.

After some spirited debate over workers’ rights issues in Colombia, the House Ways and Means Committee approved all three agreements — South Korea, Panama and, the most controversial among Democrats, the U.S.-Colombia accord.

{mosads}Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said he expects the House to vote on the three trade agreements along with a trade preferences-worker assistance bill soon.

“These agreements create sustainable and well-paying jobs and it is my expectation that when we finish our work here today, the House will vote on the agreements and on the GSP/TAA package as soon as possible so that America can start to reap the benefits,” Camp said.

Lawmakers clashed over whether including a so-called labor action plan into Colombia’s implementation language would provide U.S. trade officials with greater recourse in rescinding Colombia’s trading privileges if workers’ rights are violated.

Panel ranking member Sander Levin (D-Mich.) and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) have led the charge for months to link the labor action plan to the trade deal’s implementing language as a way to strengthen the Colombia agreement.

They had plenty of support from other Democrats in the committee — 12 of 15 Democrats opposed the pact.

“Colombian workers have long been without their basic rights due to a combination of inadequate laws, labor-related violence and impunity,” Levin said during the markup.

“There remain troubling problems with how Colombia is addressing key elements related to the action plan,” he said. “The flaws are magnified by the failure to incorporate the action plan in the implementation bill as a result of the adamant refusal of Republicans — and the Obama administration’s acquiescence to that refusal.”

Levin and other Democrats did not offer amendments to the Colombia bill, which wasn’t protected by the fast-track process. In 2008, Colombia lost its Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) protections when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blocked the deal after President Bush submitted it to Congress for a vote without her consent.

A senior administration official from the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office acknowledged that ensuring Colombia remains on track “will require hard work.”

The official reiterated a vow made by President Obama that the deal wouldn’t be implemented with Colombia until all requirements are met.

He called the action plan “a far-reaching set of commitments with a wide-reaching set of new tools being deployed” and said that the administration intends to work with Colombia to “ensure this goes forward.”

All requirements under the action plan are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The earliest any of the trade deals will go into effect is Jan. 1, the official said.

U.S. trade officials will work to complete implementation “as fast as we can” telling lawmakers that the “administration is as eager as you are,” the official said.

In sending up the trade deals to Capitol Hill on Monday, Obama tried to quell concerns about the Colombia agreement, saying he expects the Latin American nation to fulfill all the requirements of a labor action plan designed to provide greater protections for workers and more severe punishments for violence acts against labor leaders and groups.

“Colombia must successfully implement key elements of the action plan before I will bring the agreement into force,” Obama said Monday in a transmission statement.

{mossecondads}Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) expressed concerns like other Democrats about the continued violence against workers in Colombia calling it the “trade union murder capital of the world.”

“Do we want to approve an agreement with a country that has acted this way,” he said.

A Human Rights Watch report released this week showed that “while the number of trade unionists killed every year is certainly less today than a decade ago, it remains higher than any other country in the world.”

While the report expressed encouragement over steps being taken by the Colombia government it added “yet we also believe further measures are needed to ensure that your efforts succeed and the era of unchecked violence against trade unionists in Colombia is finally overcome.”

“A major reason for this ongoing violence has been the chronic lack of accountability for cases of anti-union violence,” the report said.

In a memo released prior to the markup, the AFL-CIO, which opposes all three trade deals, said “after more than five months of implementation, Colombia has failed to deliver real change to workers and left many of its commitments unfulfilled” and urged Congress not to take up the trade deal.

“The systematic repression of workers in Colombia serves the interest of neither the Colombian nor the American people.”

The other two agreements sailed through the committee with votes of 32-3 for Panama and 31-5 for Korea.