American Thuggary

Robert Novak has a scary article at Townhall.com about how American Unions are killing free trade agreements with the last friends the US has in South America.

The shocker came June 29 as Congress cleared out of Washington for the Fourth of July holiday. Pelosi announced that Rangel and presumably Levin would be off to Peru and Panama to demand new changes in their labor laws as payment for the negotiated trade agreements. She rejected the Colombian pact out of hand.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, a former Senate staffer, usually treats Congress with care -- but not in a July 6 letter to Pelosi: "Unilaterally requiring another sovereign country to change its domestic laws before the U.S. approves a trade agreement would be a fundamental break with U.S. laws, policy and practice. No past administration or Congress -- Democratic or Republican -- has taken such a step. Nor would the United States agree to such a procedure if demanded by another nation."

Read the whole thing here.