House seeks to delay Colombia trade pact

The U.S. House of Representatives plans today to delay until after the November election a controversial trade pact with Colombia, sparing Democratic presidential candidates the need to choose between businesses that support the deal and unions that oppose it.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, campaigning in advance of the April 22 Pennsylvania primary where the economy has suffered blue-collar job losses, have voiced opposition to the accord.

Clinton recently fired campaign strategist Mark Penn for his outside public relations work with the Colombian government. “The Colombia free trade deal, in my view, is not appropriate because of the history of suppression and targeted killings of labor organizers in Colombia,” she told CNN.

Obama, in an exchange with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe in the Wall Street Journal, also voiced concerns about the pact. “You’ve got a government that is under a cloud of potentially having supported violence against unions, against labor, against opposition,” he said. “That’s not the kind of behavior that we want to reward. I think until we get that straightened out it’s inappropriate for us to move forward.”

Today, with Obama traveling in Indiana and Clinton scheduled to hold several Democratic dinners in Pennsylvania, the political ground in the Democratic race shifted back to Washington, where the House began debating a procedural gambit to drop the “fast-track” authority that puts a 90-day deadline on action.

The Bush administration, which sent the trade pact to Congress on Tuesday with a message urging swift action, reacted with dismay, saying the congressional move will undermine the credibility of future U.S. trade pacts.

“This was a bipartisan deal,” said U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab. “To change the rules in the middle of the game is profoundly unfair.” Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez added that threatening the pact would risk losing U.S. jobs. “If Colombia doesn’t buy our wheat, they’ll buy it from Japan,” he said.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said she warned the administration not to send the politically sensitive pact to Congress and the White House ignored her advice.

In today’s debate, Democrats said they do not intend to kill the agreement, only postpone its consideration while Colombia works to reduce violence against labor organizers. Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.), said the move was made necessary by the “partisan and irresponsible action” of a stubborn White House. Ways and means committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) agreed that the administration had not consulted with members of Congress. But Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) said congressional delay would weaken an ally facing violence on its borders and fighting narco-terrorists, and undermine U.S. credibility “according to the whims of electoral politics.”

Presidents have been using “fast-track” authority to win congressional approval for trade agreements since 1974. Under the rules, the House has 60 legislative days to hold a vote, followed by a 30-day window for the Senate. Fast track means that trade deals require an up-or-down vote, no amendments allowed.

But recent job losses, especially in the manufacturing sector, have prompted Clinton and Obama to call for amendments to the North American Free Trade Agreement to address environmental and worker concerns.

Jobs were also the subject today of a speech about the economy by Republican presidential candidate John McCain. The Arizona senator, who has confessed that economics is not his strong suit, outlined his ideas for grappling with the sub-prime mortgage mess.

At a town hall meeting in Brooklyn this afternoon, McCain plans to propose a system that allows struggling homeowners to “trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects the market value of their home,” according to excerpts of the speech released by the campaign.

“When markets decline dramatically, debts must be restructured,” he says in describing his HOME program. “It is built on the reality that homeowners should have an equity capital stake in their home. Homeowners would end up with a 30-year mortgage and an equity stake in their home. The new lender would receive a federal guarantee of the mortgage. And the taxpayer gets a benefit if the sale value ever recovers.”

But Obama quickly criticized McCain’s plan, calling it mostly rhetoric.

“Better late than never,” said Obama, adding that McCain’s plan “won’t actually help struggling families, because Sen. McCain’s solution to the housing crisis seems a lot like the George Bush solution of sitting by and hoping it passes while families face foreclosure and watch the value of their homes erode.”

Instead, at a town hall meeting today in Gary, Ind., Obama called for a second $30-billion economic stimulus package, including a $10-billion foreclosure prevention fund and another $10 billion for state and local governments hit hardest by the mortgage crisis.