Remember during the debate over the Colombian trade deal when the Administration swore up and down that they would, as a condition of putting the free trade agreement forward, insist on an “action plan” that would end the murder of trade unionists in Colombia and bring about justice for those already killed? Yeah, so, we’re several months beyond the passage of those trade deals – Obama highlighted them in the State of the Union on Tuesday. So how’s that action plan going?

The Internet censorship bills, SOPA and PIPA, bouncing around Congress don’t really work unless you apply them globally. If other countries do not vigorously protect their entertainment and high-tech industry’s copyrights in the same way as the United States, those industries will lose market share domestically. So the US has taken to pressuring other countries to pass anti-piracy laws through their legislatures. And this pressure rose to the level of threats, we have now learned from leaked letters.

As Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach explained yesterday, the three trade agreements passed Congress in a whirlwind of activity last night, because a present for the President of South Korea’s visit to Washington today is more important than a considered debate about the role of neoliberal trade agreements and what they have traditionally done to US exports. In addition, the House did pass Trade Adjustment Assistance, with every Democrat supporting and about half of Republicans. This had already passed the Senate, so the entire package goes to the President for his signature, and he is pleased about this:

While the American Jobs Act failed a cloture vote last night, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act passed the Senate on a final vote. That bill would allow the Commerce Department to target currency manipulators like China with tariffs proportional to their currency manipulation if industries or unions file complaints. And it would force [...]

Later today, Senate Republicans will filibuster the American Jobs Act, the $447 billion bill to add demand into the economy through infrastructure spending, payroll tax cuts, extended unemployment insurance and a variety of other programs, paid for by a 5.6% surtax on millionaires. That would stop the bill in its current form.

It was already clear that the House GOP wanted no part of the China currency manipulation bill working its way through the Senate, but John Boehner clinched it the other day, calling it “pretty dangerous” for lawmakers to crack down on China and their artificial lowering of the price of their exports. The Republican leadership even forced Hal Rogers, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, to take his name off the discharge petition trying to force a vote on the bill to the floor, after he initially signed it. There are currently a majority of co-sponsors for the legislation in the House, but only 175 signers of the petition after Rogers took his name off.

Yesterday, the Senate voted for cloture on a motion to proceed on a bill to discourage China’s currency manipulation, with a bipartisan 79-19 vote. But the White House would rather pursue its “free” trade bills with Columbia, Korea and Panama.

We have known for years about the dangers of being a trade unionist in Colombia, of the murders of organizers and labor officials. The murders have increased in frequency in the years since the US negotiated a trade deal with Colombia. They are well documented. Now Rich Trumka has sent the President a list of victims.

Speaking of Congress, they may be getting themselves in a position to actually pass those three long-stalled trade agreements The Senate passed a bill providing assistance for workers displaced by trade agreements, but its prospects in the House are uncertain.

Congress is back on the job today, at least in the Senate. The House just had to have one more day off to refresh them for the ideological agenda-setting ahead. The return to session comes at a time when polls show a total collapse in confidence in Congress’ ability to do their job, and a general pessimism about the prospects for a turnaround in the economy. The big story of the week will be the President’s jobs speech on Thursday. But what will Congress do when left to their own devices?

Exceedingly little.