President Obama Submits Colombia Trade Agreement to Congress; Vote Next Week?

On October 3 President Obama submitted to Congress the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, along with two other Bush-era trade agreements with South Korea and Panama. The House is expected to hold separate floor votes on the agreements as early as October 11.

USLEAP joins a diverse group of human and labor rights organizations in its continued opposition to the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. Human Rights Watch recently submitted a letter to the Colombian Attorney General citing continued violence against trade unionists, impunity, and lack of accountability and justice in labor-related crimes. The findings echo USLEAP’s 2010 impunity report analyzing violence in 2009, entitled “Colombia: Falling Further Behind in the Fight Against the Impunity of Anti-Union Violence.”

In his message to Congress when submitting the Colombia FTA, President Obama said the U.S. would not implement the agreement until “key elements” of the Labor Action Plan are met. Considering that the U.S. Trade Representative has consistently given the Colombian government an enthusiastic thumbs up on compliance in spite of the facts, President Obama’s assurance must be met with considerable skepticism at this point.

On the same day that President Obama sent the Colombia FTA to Congress, Inside U.S. Trade reported that an internal AFL-CIO memo from September 30 highlights at least four areas of compliancy in the Labor Action Plan that the Colombian government failed to make change, including issues related to collective pacts, cooperatives, government protection of activists, and civil society’s involvement in the implementation of the Plan.

Even if Colombia adequately complies with the steps outlined in the Labor Action Plan before implementation of the FTA, the timeline and the Plan does not require Colombia to show sustained, measurable progress in the reduction of violence against unionists or repression linked to other human rights issues. U.S. trade unions planned a massive day of anti-Free Trade Agreement lobbying on October 4, one day after President Obama submitted the agreements to Congress. The three free trade agreements are fundamentally an extension of the NAFTA-style trade model that has hurt workers on both sides of the border while undermining environmental and other protections.

President Obama submitted the agreements following a decision by the House Rules Committee allowing Congress to vote on the renewal of the expired Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, to which many House Republicans object. Trade Adjustment Assistance provides aid to U.S. workers who face unemployment as a result of free trade agreements. The President previously said that he would not submit the Free Trade Agreements without the renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance.