Harold Meyerson.  He writes op-eds for the Washington Post (WaPo).  I really hadn't paid much attention to him.  But he wrote a fabulous article published Thursday.  Many of you have probably seen it, but I've been out for a few days and just saw it now.

The piece is Missing:  Our Trade Stategy.  The topic is the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.  (We really have to come up with a different name than "free trade agreement" because they are nothing of the sort, and everytime I name the deal, I reinforce the happy "free trade" smiley face).

President Bush has sent his trade pact with Colombia to Capitol Hill, and suddenly Washington is not only ablaze with cherry blossoms but cluttered by chestnuts. Every old argument for the virtues of free trade is being recycled by the league of American editorialists, whose all-but-universal commitment to a failed policy will surely excite the wonder of future historians.

The amazing thing about the free-traders' arguments is that they never change. Today's free-trade commentaries make the same points as the pro-NAFTA editorials of 1993-94. Now, as then, bilateral trade is a win-win proposition for the peoples of both signatory nations. It raises living standards in developing nations. An educated American workforce has nothing to fear from competition.

Read these commentaries, and you'd think that the past 15 years hadn't happened. If NAFTA had been a win for Mexico, the millions of its farmers displaced by U.S. agribusiness would have found better jobs in Mexican industry. Instead, with Mexico failing to invest in its own people, and with China supplanting Mexico as our manufacturers' preferred source of cheap labor, those farmers are disproportionately the immigrants who've crossed the border to work here in the States.

Very good.  The editorial board arguments are, indeed, so 1994.  The WaPo editorial board is guilty.  Sebastian Mallaby, op-ed contributor at WaPo is guilty.  The NYT editorial board is guilty. 

He not only chastises, but suggests a solution.  A national strategy to ensure that Americans benefit.

In short, while we've been practicing free trade, we've been devoid of any national policy geared toward retaining or creating good jobs. It's not that such policies are so difficult to devise. Indeed, while European nations have defended their high-skill manufacturing jobs and professionalized and increased the skill levels needed for many service-sector jobs, and while Asian nations have worked assiduously to build their manufacturing sectors, only the United States and Britain have opted not to develop national economic strategies.  ...

What's been missing in America's trade policy is a preference for Americans. The object of trade in China is to help the Chinese nation. German trade is designed to help Germany; Scandinavian, to help the Scandinavian nations. This is not the case here. General Electric goes abroad to lower costs and boost profits.  ...  In the absence of such a national economic strategy, is it any wonder that by margins of better than two to one, Americans now oppose free trade?

Again.  Very good.

Here's a break from the trade stuff.  The Cern pioneered the internet.  And now have the grid project.  Transmission rates 10,000 times faster than the internet. On fiber optic lines. 

Bill Clinton met with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on June 23, 2005.   This was said publicly:

"We need your help to expedite the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU is very important to give a clear signal of what the relations between the two countries should be," President Alvaro Uribe said yesterday to the former president of the EU Bill Clinton, during Expogestion 2005.

"I will raise your point when you return to the United States," Clinton replied. "I am in favor of the free trade agreement and it is my hope that we will find the right formula to reach the agreement."

The story also reports that Clinton received a two-minute standing ovation after "applauding Colombia's perserverence for the progress made in the Free Trade Agreement negotiations with the United States."

A Clinton spokesman confirms Bill's support for the deal, and distances Hillary from that support:

[Clinton campaign spokesman] Carson said Hillary Clinton disagrees with her husband on free trade with Colombia, and said Bill Clinton's support for it has been public since 2000.

"Senator Clinton is the candidate for president and she is a clear and firm opponent of the Colombian free trade agreement. Like other married couples who disagree on issues from time to time, she disagrees with her husband on this issue. President Clinton has been public about his support for Columbia's request for U.S. trade preferences since 2000," Carson said. "Yawn."

And apparently Mark Penn is not really leaving the campaign.  On the question of whether he is really out of the strategic planning loop:

Not so, say friends and critics.
"Reports of Mark's death are greatly exaggerated," said a Penn confidant.
"You don't break a circle like that easily and quickly," a senior Clinton adviser agreed.

That's all it took.  Bush submits the Colombia Free Trade Agreement to Congress. And a spotlight is shown on who really pushes these trade deals.  The Colombian government has spent at least one million dollars on lobbyists here... and probably more.  Hillary may have had a change of heart on trade deals, but she is surrounded by folks who have not and who profit from the FTAs.

The Democratic Party has been split by trade agreements and trade policy.  The Clintonites like the deals.  Other Dems hate them.  Most Republicans like them, a lot, though Republican voters oppose them.  Unfortunately, Republican voters with those views have no organized mechanism to press their case within the party.

Many former Clinton Administration folks are retained to push it through.  Mark Penn - who worked for both Clinton and the Colombia government AT THE SAME TIME - was just the beginning of the revelations. 

Howard Wolfson replaced Penn as a Clinton campaign manager.  He owns $500,000 to $1 million in a firm that has a contract with... you guessed it... the Colombia government.

A long list of former Clinton administration aides, including Mack McLarty, the former counsel to the president; Donna E. Shalala, the health and human services secretary; and Leon E. Panetta, the onetime chief of staff, also have come out in support of the deal. It puts them in alliance with Mr. Bush and Republican leaders. 

The Uribe government murders trade unionists.  Uribe is not a nice guy. We need to help them by giving away our economy?  By continuing with dumb trade deals?

The multinationals and the government folks that do their beck and call want the Colombia FTA.  Voters don't want it.  We need a new trade policy.