State of the Union

Boz already has a post up on the SOTU. There is nothing very remarkable about it, with regard to Latin America or anything else. I would just highlight the passage about free trade agreements.

These agreements also promote America's strategic interests. The first agreement that will come before you is with Colombia, a friend of America that is confronting violence and terror, and fighting drug traffickers. If we fail to pass this agreement, we will embolden the purveyors of false populism in our hemisphere. So we must come together, pass this agreement, and show our neighbors in the region that democracy leads to a better life. (Applause.)

The question of an FTA Colombia certainly deserves debate on its own merits (beyond platitudes like "trusting" American workers to compete). What bugs me, and I mentioned it last October when the administration made the same argument, is bringing Venezuela into the picture. The overall message is that even if you don’t like the agreement, you have to pass it because Hugo Chávez will benefit otherwise. Can’t we come up with a more persuasive argument? If Chávez did not exist, what would the argument be?

The other problem with the passage is that we’re going to “show our neighbors that democracy leads to a better life,” but an FTA is about trade, not about democracy. So what we’re really hoping to show is that free trade leads to a better life.