Meanwhile, at the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America Summit in New Orleans, President Bush urged Congress to pass the Colombian free trade deal.

bq.President Bush: “An agreement with Colombia would level the playing field. And a failure to pass an agreement would send a terrible signal to our neighborhood. The Speaker of the United States Congress has killed this bill, unless she gives us a date certain for a vote. It’s a bad decision on her part. And it’s bad for our hemisphere to have the United States of America turn its back on a mutual friend like Colombia.”