David Ignatius points out that, while Democrats like to talk about how they'd improve our relationships with other countries, they are in the midst of worsening our relationships with key Latin American allies.
The danger for the United States is that if it abandons these Latin advocates of open markets, the beneficiaries will be radical supporters of Venezuela's Chávez. Already Chávez is pumping an estimated $2 billion in discounted oil to poor Latin American countries. The United States, by contrast, is providing just $1.3 billion in development assistance. Chávez isn't about to conquer Latin America. But if Mexico, in particular, believes the United States is abandoning open markets and joint development, the resulting radicalism could create a serious security problem on America's border.
So what are the Democrats doing about trade? Well, they dither. Democratic leaders in Congress say they may bring trade agreements with Panama and Peru up for a vote this fall, after gaining concessions on workers' rights and the environment. As for the Colombia agreement, it appears dead for this year. The Democratic presidential candidates, meanwhile, are scurrying to follow the party's base, rather than trying to lead it, on trade. The Democrats want to turn a page, but in the case of Latin America, they may be turning it backward.
The real shame is how they have abandoned President Uribe of Columbia, a man who could be one of our key friends in the region. The Democrats opposing a free trade agreement with Columbia are worried about the murder of unionists in Columbia. What they seem to be ignoring is that it is President Uribe's government which has been fighting to kill the guerrillas and paramilitary groups that are responsible for protecting those unionists. As Mary Anastasia O'Grady explains in the Wall Street Journal, this is a man who is bravely trying to turn around the terrorism that has dominated his country for so long and is trying to build the economy through trade rather than through drug trafficking. And the Democrats are standing in our way for helping him by approving the free trade agreement with Columbia.
A serious look at the record suggests that left-wing propaganda is trumping the facts in the Democrats' war room. If the party's leadership sustains this view, the outcome will not only harm Colombia but will badly damage U.S. interests in the region.
You wouldn't know it from all the grandstanding by Democrats, but the Colombian government has been very open about the persistence of violence in the country. President Álvaro Uribe talks often and candidly about the issue, as he did in a speech in New York on July 22, and he doesn't sugarcoat the tragedy.
"They still assassinate 17,000 Colombians a year. We would like to show a greater reduction but they used to kill 35,000. Not one town has been destroyed in Colombia this year. In the year before my administration, terrorist groups destroyed 84 towns in Colombia. Our freedom was threatened by terrorism. There were years when they killed 15 journalists. This year they have not assassinated one. We had years when they kidnapped more than 3,000 Colombians. This year they have kidnapped 107. We'd like not to have a single kidnapping. We're gaining on kidnapping but still we have not been able to defeat it."
Unionists have certainly benefited from the improved security. There were years when more than 250 of them were killed, the president said in New York, but recently far fewer have died. In 2006, he said, the violence intensified and the number went up to 60 from 25 in 2005. This year only four trade unionists have been killed and the Justice Ministry says that preliminary investigations indicate that their deaths were not linked to union activism. The government is also investigating the murders of 12 teachers-union members.
In Colombia, unionists are killed much for the same reasons peasants are murdered. They are caught in the crossfire between paramilitaries and guerrillas. As Mr. Uribe explained in his New York speech, "paramilitaries kill unionists, accusing them of collaboration with the guerrillas and guerrillas kill unionists, accusing them of collaboration with the paramilitaries." Now even the two main guerrilla groups, in certain regions of the country, are battling one another. "The [rebel group] ELN kills a unionist because they say he's a friend of the [rebel group] FARC and the FARC kills another because they say he's a friend of the ELN."
Still, homicides of unionists are down by two-thirds since Mr. Uribe took office and the government is bending over backward to protect union members.
It is time for the Democrats to recover their traditions as supporters of free trade and approve the agreements with Peru, Panama, and Columbia. Do they really want to see Hugo Chavez increase his influence in the region as we abdicate ours.
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