Free Trade will not help workers in Colombia

This appears in the pro-right, pro-business Washington Times:

President Obama's recently mentioned that free trade agreements are pending approval in Congress. One of these is with Colombia, South America, the country where I was born and where I lived until I was 21 years old.

From that insiders perspective following is my personal knowledge flavored by my understanding of Colombian culture and politics. I also have definite views of what the Free Market treaties have done to our American economy.

Competing on a non-level playing ground has not been very successful for the American worker. Making goods in a country that has rational economic, labor, and environmental structures is a lot more expensive than in a country that doesn't have them.

This combined with very low labor costs makes competition very hard if not impossible.