Judging by your comments you didn't read the article so I'll quote from it.

>Geez, I dunno, Jake.
>
>I don't know about "Changing the rules after the fact...". Are the "rules" that Congress has to ratify presidentially negotiated trade agreements.

"So on Monday, President Bush submitted the bill to Congress over liberal protests, which, under a bargain between Congress and the White House for trade promotion authority, mandated an up-or-down vote within 90 days. Today Ms. Pelosi will make an ex post facto change to House rules to avoid the required vote, withdrawing from the timetable and thus relegating the Colombia deal to a perhaps permanent limbo."

>
>But, to my knowledge, the U.S. has no free trade agreement with China, yet look what that has done to your economy!

Not addressed by this article.

>Might Columbia be your "best ally" in Latin America because you send boodles of anti-drug $$$ their way?
>How do "security interests" get affected by rejecting the agreement?

"Even if the free trade agreement is somehow removed from cold storage, Ms. Pelosi's cheating is a first-order strategic blunder. Colombia is one of America's closest friends in a hostile region menaced by Hugo Chávez's Venezuela. For all the talk of repairing the U.S. "image" in the world, the Democrats don't really mind harming that image if it pleases the AFL-CIO."

>It's awfully hard for the U.S. to come out a winner in any free trade agreement when the other party has extremely low wages, not to mention other factors like working conditions and environmental impact that manufacturers may cause.

"Yesterday Ms. Pelosi said the bill would harm "the economic concerns of America's working families." Yet over 90% of Colombian imports enter the U.S. duty-free, while the agreement would open the Colombian market to American goods that face tariffs as high as 35%."

>Maybe my job heading to India in July has tainted my thinking (which has no free trade agreement helping it along).

I cannot comment on Canadian business' outsourcing policies.

>>Changing the rules after the fact seems to be a trend with this bunch. However, this time it is not simply affecting a house vote's timing or the Democratic primary, this time they're damaging the ability of the President (office not current occupant) to engage in good-faith treaty negotiations.
>>
>>"The Democratic Party's protectionist make-over was completed yesterday, when Nancy Pelosi decided to kill the Colombia free trade agreement. Her objections had nothing to do with the evidence and everything to do with politics, but this was an act of particular bad faith. It will damage the economic and security interests of the U.S. while trashing our best ally in Latin America."
>>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120778566399303309.html