Frank # 28, may be, I am naive for taking Barack Obama at his word. May be, you are presumptuous for assuming that you can read his mind. All we can do is attribute motive to actors and our allegiances will color such attributions in a systematic manner.

In other words, it’s an argument that may yield propaganda and self-assurance but is analytically useless.

Frankly, I don’t care about Barack Obama’s motivation as long as he does the right thing. In Federalist 51, James Madison explained that the American government was designed to balance ambition with ambition.

If Obama held the Uribe administration accountable for cynical reasons, I will take it. That’s the genius of the American constitution.

Your language indicates a troubling lack of perspective in matters of life and death. It leaves me to wonder how you would feel if you cared about any of the victims.

An effort to stop the murderous campaign conducted by Columbian police, military and militias easily justifies a no vote in the United States Senate. Passage of the trade accord is in Uribe’s hands. He just needs to prosecute the perpetrators and establish discipline among his security forces and Senator Obama will support the proposal.

By the way, bringing the rule of law to Columbia will improve Columbia’s economy much more than a tiny improvement of trade rules. Even the Austrian school considers the rule of law a necessary precondition for markets.

Contracts are meaningless when one party is allowed to resort to violence with impunity.

Let me get this straight. We should oppose a trade agreement that will measurably improve the welfare of the population both countries because it won’t improve it enough?

As the world economy is already trading at high levels, the effects of additional deregulation of trade are modest.

The CIA world fact book reports Columbia’s GDP at $171.6 billion. The United States International Trade Commission projects that Columbian exports will grow by $487 million.

The added value, the part that actually amounts to growth, will be a fraction thereof. Lets be, generous and assume that Columbia creates half the value then the additional growth would be .1419% per year.

Of course, there will be other benefits from imports, which are valuable but obviously cannot substitute drug exports.

Here is the PDF of the Trade Commission report: http://www.usitc.gov/publications/pub3896.pdf, go to page 7, please.

I am curious how you know this.