Pro/con : Should Congress approve trade pacts?

The White House has clinched an agreement with Colombia on reforms that will open the door for congressional approval of the long-pending U.S.-Colombia trade agreement.

This means that all three pending trade agreements including the equally vital agreements with Korea and Panama should be approved by Congress in the weeks ahead.

This is a new kind of trade agreement that guarantees fairness and accountability. U.S. tariffs on Colombian manufactured goods averaged just 0.1 percent last year, but Colombian tariffs on U.S. manufactured goods average 15 percent and even higher for U.S. agricultural products.

A similar lopsidedness holds back our trade with South Korea and Panama as well.

Upon implementation, the agreement with Colombia will immediately eliminate most of those tariffs, removing nearly all of them within three years.

At a time when millions of Americans are out of work, it will create real business opportunities and a level playing field for American exporters.

The agreement will also open Colombia’s dynamic service markets and protect the intellectual property of American innovators and creative artists.

The Obama-Bush trade agenda is bound to worsen America’s trade balance, thus reducing growth and hiring on balance, and adding to still-dangerous levels of national debt.

The Korea agreement continues America’s long-standing tradition of expanding commerce with economies structurally different enough to preclude mutually beneficial trade.

What Washington keeps ignoring is that economies like Korea’s are best seen as national systems of protection.

Their fundamental purpose is maximizing national wealth by protecting home markets and by helping their companies penetrate foreign markets with all manner of subsidies.

The Colombia and Panama deals typify Washington’s other big trade policy mistake. Since the NAFTA negotiations of the early 1990s, America repeatedly has sought economic integration with countries too small, or too poor, or too indebted to possibly become big net importers.

At the same time, these countries have often become major exporters to America thanks to super-cheap but highly trainable workers, lax regulatory regimes, and governments willing to pay to attract business.