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Max Baucus is, thank goodness, still using beef as the reason to not support the South Korea FTA. The wacko free traders at the Washington Post editorial board are rallying for passage of the deal in an editorial today, and focusing on Baucus. We need to get past this sector specific dealmaking on trade and wrestle with the issue in a macro way... making U.S. trade policy good for our country and our people... not just cut for a particular industry.
I understand from Montana friends that Baucus is running ads in his home state featuring Montana businesses that export, or want to export, to Columbia... all two of them. I've not seen the ads, but it is consistent with Baucus' views. He walks a fine line because of his distance from voters on this issue.
Montanans are pro-trade reform, the Montana state legislature passed a resolution in 2007 that did not favor new trade deals, but Baucus gets a lot of Wall Street money. He has voted for all trade agreements placed before him.
The vast majority of Republicans in Congress (not in the country) are
anti-trade reform. The Dems have an internal war on the issue. A
majority of House Dems are for trade reform, but a majority of Dems in
the Senate are not. I base this primarily on the recent Peru FTA vote. (You can see the Peru FTA roll call vote in the Senate here and in the House here). And I do know there is a ripe possibility for changing many of those votes in upcoming trade related legislation.
The changed political situation is why we do not have the Colombia FTA today. Bush sent it to Congress, which had to vote on it within 90 days under grandfathered Fast Track rules. But Pelosi did not want her party riven by this conflict. Thus:
On 10 April, House Democrats overwhelmingly backed a successful 224-195 vote to eliminate rules requiring Congress to approve or reject the Colombia FTA within 90 legislative days, thus indefinitely postponing any action on the agreement.
The vote does not mean Colombia would not pass, but that the Dems did not want to deal with it. Voters don't want more of these deals. I believe that Colombia would pass today if voted upon in Congress. More work must be done.
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