Cooler heads may prevail after political passions die down. By Peter A. Buxbaum, AJOT The liberation last month by Colombian security forces of 15 long-held hostages, including three Americans, from imprisonment by the leftist narco-terrorist group FARC, led some supporters of the US-Colombia free trade agreement to exclaim that the US Congress should repay Colombia by passing the FTA. What does one thing have to do with the other? Nothing. However, this kind of reasoning has become characteristic for this political football, in which arguments on either side have strayed far from the actual merits of the bilateral accord. Proponents of the FTA have characterized its passage in foreign policy and national security terms. Congressional doubters have pointed to the failure of the administration to consult with Congress and to the murder of Colombian union activists by criminal gangs. Right now the US-Colombia FTA is stuck in legislative limbo, having fallen victim to inside-the-Beltway political wrangling. What are its prospects for passage before President Bush leaves office? Not very good. But reports of the FTA’s demise are still premature. More than anything, the US-Colombia FTA has fallen victim to poor timing. The agreement was signed in November 2006, just before the Congressional midterm elections gave Democrats control of Congress and the legislature took a more protectionist bent. “Congressional leaders suddenly balked in mid-2007, by insisting that pending and future trade agreements must include enforceable labor and environmental standards,” noted Frances Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington research organization. Colombia renegotiated the FTA, and in April 2008, President Bush submitted the agreement to Congress under fast-track or Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which requires Congress to vote up or down within 90 days. TPA also allows Congress to suspend the 90-day time limit, which it did soon after the president submitted the FTA. Observers doubt Congressional leaders will move the matter before the end of the 110th Congress. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said the reason for Congress’ refusal to proceed under fast track is that the president acted “unilaterally in sending the FTA to Congress.” That action, Reid said on the floor of the Senate, “disregards three decades of established precedent under fast-track legislation, and demonstrates yet again his lack of respect for Congress.” President Bush, at the time he sent the legislation to Congress, denied he failed to consult with the body and added that passage of the FTA was a matter of national security. “Colombia is one of our strongest allies in the Western Hemisphere,” the president said. “Colombia also faces a hostile and anti-American regime in Venezuela which has met with FARC terrorist leaders and deployed troops to the Colombian border as a means of intimidating the Colombian government and its people. “If Congress fails to approve this agreement,” Bush concluded, “it would not only abandon a brave ally, it would send a signal throughout the region that America cannot be counted on to support its friends.” Reid countered that “it is a major mistake to set up the Colombia FTA legislation as the proxy for support for Colombia.” “An FTA is not a foreign-aid package,” he argued. “It is neither a favor for friendly governments, nor a substitute for sensible and sustained foreign-policy engagement in the hemisphere.” FTA supporters repeated Bush’s national argument in favor of the FTA, pointing to Colombia as a pivot point of hemispheric political strategy. Speaking on the floor of the Senate on April 11, Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky suggested that the failure to pass the FTA would strengthen the hand of Venezuelan strong man Hugo Chavez. James Roberts, a researcher at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, concurred. “Politically, Congress’s refusal to pass the US-Colombia sends a very