Businesses urge Obama reversal on Colombia deal

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A broad U.S. business coalition urged President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday to drop his opposition to a free trade pact with Colombia and work with Congress to approve it and a second agreement with Panama this year.

"To delay approval of these trade deals would be to abandon America's closest allies in Latin America at critical time," the Latin America Trade Coalition of 1,200 businesses and business groups said in a letter to Obama.

With Congress already looking at measures to boost the troubled U.S. economy, "approval of these agreements is a logical part of any stimulus package," the coalition said.

The plea came as Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat and critic of Bush administration trade policies, said the results of Tuesday's presidential and congressional election signaled a "time out" on trade deals for the United States.

NEW LAWMAKERS URGE TRADE DEAL MORATORIUM

"This year, we saw more candidates campaigning on fair trade than in, to my knowledge, any time in the nation's history," Brown told reporters. "We're seeing a continuing rejection by voters of NAFTA-style trade agreements."

Newly-elected Reps. Larry Kissell, a North Carolina Democrat, and Mark Schauer, a Michigan Democrat, attributed their victories to voter concern about trade pacts.

"We've been swimming against a tide of unfair trade policies," said Schauer, whose state's economy has been battered by a slump in the auto industry.

Kissell, whose state has seen heavy textile industry job losses, called for a moratorium on trade deals until "we see good jobs coming back."

Obama has said he could not support the Colombia agreement until that country does much more to reduce murders of trade unionists and other violence, a view he repeated in his third

debate with Republican opponent John McCain.

'STAND FOR HUMAN RIGHTS'

"We have to stand for human rights and we have to make sure that violence isn't being perpetrated against workers who are just trying to organize for their rights," Obama said.

The Bush administration argues Colombia has made great strides in reducing violence under President Alvaro Uribe and approving the pact would support a key ally in a region where some leaders, such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, are openly hostile to the United States.

Approving the Panama agreement would give U.S. heavy equipment and engineering companies an important market access advantage as the Panama Canal Authority undertakes a $5 billion expansion of the canal -- one of the largest public works project in the world today, the business coalition said.