U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged Congress to ratify free-trade agreements with Peru, Panama and Columbia. Rice warned that failure to approve the agreements would deliver a “great blow to these three countries.” “It would send a loud and clear message across the region that the United States cannot be trusted to keep its promises,” Rice said in a speech on U.S. trade relations with Latin America at the Organization of American States. The speech is part of a White House attempt to push through the agreements. President George W. Bush is expected to urge Congress to pass the free-trade pacts in a speech in Miami on Friday. Congress may pass the Peru deal, but the pacts with Columbia and Panama face challenges. U.S. labor groups oppose the agreement with Colombia, which they call the most dangerous country in the world for union workers. They accuse the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of failing to prosecute hundreds of cases of murdered trade unionists. In June, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders said they could not support the Colombia deal until they saw “concrete evidence” of a sustained effort to reduce violence and put murderers in jail. Uribe's party has also come under attack from Democrats for its alleged ties to drug-running militias formed in the 1980s to help fight leftist rebels. The agreement with Panama was thrown into jeopardy after the country's National Assembly elected as its leader a lawmaker wanted in the United States on charges he killed a U.S. soldier in 1992. Pedro Miguel Gonzalez was nominated by Panama's ruling Revolutionary Democratic Party and elected on September 1, despite his long-standing indictment in the United States. Rice did not mention the issue in her speech but said approving the free-trade agreement would help Panama concretize its transition to a stable democracy.
