This legislation ratifies a trade deal negotiated by the United States and Colombia. The agreement is modeled on the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the 2005 Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and, like those agreements, removes most export tariffs between the signatory nations while providing new rights for investors and increasing protection for pharmaceutical patents and other intellectual property. Increased international trade can contribute to economic growth, but the way trade rules are formulated in agreements like this means that the benefits of trade are distributed unevenly, ultimately undermining the middle class and aspiring middle class in both the U.S. and the nations it trades with. The trade deal with Colombia is particularly troubling because of Colombia’s abysmal record on human and labor rights: not only is Colombian labor law inadequate and poorly enforced, but workers who try to organize unions or call for higher wages regularly face violent reprisals and even murder. According to the AFL-CIO, 39 Colombian trade unionists were killed in 2007, and another 12 were murdered in the first weeks of 2008. Most killers are never brought to justice. In effect, this pact would increase opportunities to outsource U.S. jobs to a nation where wages are kept low because working people literally fear for their lives if they stand up for their internationally-recognized rights on the job. Trade deals may at the top of corporate America’s agenda, but at a time when America’s soaring trade deficit contributes to the nation’s economic weakness, another trade deal is far from the agenda of the American middle class.