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?

With the U.S. economy stuck in a constant rut and Europe going into a tailspin, President Obama is looking to escape to the East. While the nations of the Asian Pacific rim face strains of their own, from massive inequality to climate change, their growth rates look positively zen compared to the stagnant economies that used to run the world.

So for the past several days President Obama has been charming Asia-Pacific officialdom, hoping these “emerging” economies can prop up the West’s sagging empires.

That giant sucking sound you hear today is the sound of jobs being outsourced as President Obama signs into law three free trade deals; South Korea, Colombia and Panama. According to the Economic Policy Institute, passing the Korea Free Trade deal will likely cost this country 159,000 jobs.

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:

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.

At trade talks in Chicago, the Obama administration will work with other officials to develop a trade agreement that will incorporate Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, Chile and Peru. Labor, environmental and human rights groups will gather in the city to warn that the structure, and guiding ideology, of the emerging trade deal could expand a model of free-marketeering that has displaced masses of workers across the globe and granted multinationals unprecedented powers to flout national and international laws.

Next week in Chicago, the Administration kicks off the eighth round of Trans-Pacific free trade agreement talks with multiple Asian nations. The nine-day negotiation includes talks with Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, Peru and Chile, but whatever comes out of the talks is intended to be a “docking agreement” to which larger nations in Asia and South America can sign up. That would include Japan, India and Taiwan; heck, it could include mainland China. This has been in the works for many years, and the Obama Administration has been negotiating since late 2009. The soft deadline for a Trans-Pacific FTA is November, just two months from now.

Now that the debt ceiling fight is over, President Obama has promised to pivot to jobs. The problem is that most of the elements of his so-called jobs initiatives are seriously weak. Calling these items “”jobs programs” might help temporarily prop up Obama’s poll numbers, but in the long run the administration is setting themselves up for big political blowback.

Speaking of people saying different things at different venues, here’s Chuck Schumer yesterday at the Economic Policy Institute, demanding that Congress work to create jobs

The South Korea deal could cost 159,000 jobs in the first eight years, and the Colombia deal 60,000 jobs.