The Bush administration has given formal notice it intends to bring the Peru Free Trade Agreement before Congress, and indicates it will roll Colombia and Ecuador in. We can stop this deal – even worse, than CAFTA – if we act now.

The deal:

• Contains no protection for core labor standards – even though Peru’s President offered to include them, and even though union leaders are assassinated at a rate of more than one per week in Colombia;
• Would cost jobs at home while lowering living standards in the region and forcing many farmers to turn to coca cultivation
• Would establish rules to curtail environmental protection; and
• Would deny essential generic medicines to HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria patients.

It cost the Bush administration a boatload of political capital to eke out a narrow victory on CAFTA last summer. They no longer have that kind of currency to spend. And in an election year Congress will be far more wary of voting for another unpopular trade deal. But we need to mobilize a strong fight to defeat it. Please take action today!