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As these words were written the Torrijos administration and the PRD and allied caucuses in the National Assembly were rushing the renamed US-Panama "Trade Promotion Agreement" to ratification, even though the Spanish-language versions of the final treaty and all of its annexes have not been published for the Panamanian people and the many unlingual legislators to read and consider. There will be a big labor and farmer march to protest, but the votes are clearly in line for Panama's ratification.

Recall that in 1988, Michael Dukakis's suggestion that Iowa farmers switch from the production of their customary staples of corn and soybeans to Belgian endive did not go over so well. Ah, but this is 2007 and there's this free trade deal that's cause for much jubilation in the US agribusiness sector. The US Grains Council, a lobbying group that represents the corporations that market the corn and soybeans that many Iowa farmers grow, called the deal “a definite win for US producers."

As it is now, just over one-third of US farm products come into Panama duty-free, and if this trade deal is approved by both sides, that proportion will immediately rise to just a bit more than one-half and gradually almost all other duties on American farm products will be eliminated, without Panamanian farmers getting any subsidies comparable to what American farmers get and without any real US commitment to end its subsidized farm exports. Iowa corn and soybean growers won't have to switch to Belgian endive with the trade tables tilted in this way: Panamanian farmers will.

And wouldn't you know, as part of the Torrijos administration's promotion of agricultural globalization policies, he sent Labor Minister Reynaldo Rivera to Chiriqui to tell the suffering banana plantation workers that what they really need to do is switch to more profitable crops.

Belgian endive, that's the ticket.

True, Iowa farmers may have rejected that idea. However, the embrace of ideas that Americans have come to dismiss is one of the hallmarks of Martinista development policy. The United States has for many years prohibited the capture of dolphins for tourist facilities, but in the face of overwhelming opposition by the Panamanian people the PRD is set to allow a group of North American dolphin traffickers to take these magnificent and intelligent marine mammals out of our national waters for lives in cramped captivity, and when people complain they bleat pseudo-nationalist slogans about how it's Panama's right to do what Americans once did and have since concluded was mistaken. The notion that new roads solve urban traffic congestion has been rejected in the USA, after long experience to the contrary, but the Ministry of Public Works^TM, a wholly owned subsidiary of the construction industry, is telling us that a new landfill for future development with a new road on it is going to solve Panama City's problems.

So the starving people of the Puerto Armuelles banana patch will be saved by Belgian endive. Maybe some of the minor league kleptocrats who used to run the banana workers' union and co-op will even get a chance to come back as the big boss men of a sinister Belgian endive cartel. It is, after all, the Panamanian way --- unless the Belgian endive racket becomes too profitable, in which case the government will step in and after all is said and done the business will be in the hands of somebody named Arias or otherwise illustriously surnamed.

Bring on the archbishop to bless the new Belgian endive plantations, and for the religious dissidents bring in a snake-handling preacher who talks in bizarre tongues to spread the gospel of the Belgian endive that will cure all that ails ye.

Maybe some day in Panama,  in a twisted imitation of the time that Bolivian President Evo Morales's indigenous supporters decked a wreath of coca leaves around his neck, Martín Torrijos and company will take to the campaign trail wearing wreaths of albatross feathers dyed and arranged to simulate heads of Belgian endive.

That prospect can't be any weirder than the notion that Panama's embrace of US corporate economic policies that have failed all the way across Latin America and the Caribbean and done nothing to reduce poverty here are going to boost our economy.

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The fate of the US-Panama free trade agreement will be resolved at least for awhile in a September vote in the US House of Representatives. President Bush's main trade lady, Susan Schwab, is making the case for the deal as eloquently as she can. The problem is that American voters are increasingly unconvinced to the point of annoyance by anything that the Bush administration says. While the US Senate was designed to rise above momentary popular opinions, the members of the US House of Representatives face new elections every two years and the widespread perception that free trade agreements help companies that want to leave America in search of cheap labor but harm the interests of most Americans puts House approval of this proposal in doubt.

House Ways and Means Committee chair Charlie Rangel is coming down here, and to Peru, in August. It has been reported that he will demand some immediate changes in Panamanian and Peruvian laws as a condition for approval of the free trade agreements.

There are problems with that approach, one of which has prompted the Bush administration to take a rather hilarious anti-imperialist posture. Well, yes, it is a bit unusual and maybe unseemly for legislators in country A to demand that their counterparts in country B modify the laws of a sovereign state. A fitting response, which we won't likely hear from either Panama or Peru, would be a counter-demand for "regime change" in the country that brought us the 21st century notion of "preventive war."

Moreover, although there is plenty of room for improvement there is nothing instrinsically and horribly wrong with Panama's labor and environmental laws. (On the other hand, if Rangel wants to deep-six the deal by raising a thorny issue and making an offer that the people who run our government must refuse, he could talk about Panama's banking laws.)

The problem is not that we don't have decent environmental laws, but that we don't have the rule of law. The problem is not that Panamanian workers have no rights, but that those employers who have the right political connections are allowed to disrespect those rights.

If one wants to desist from the make-believe political posturing, just for a brief moment set aside ideological preferences for or against this trade pact in particular and US-style globalization in general, and look at the practical question facing the US Congress with dispassionate eyes, the biggest real obstacle to US-Panamanian economic integration from the American perspective is this country's rampant corruption with impunity. It's already illegal to embezzle public funds while holding a government office. It's already illegal to raze the jungle without an environmental permit, polluting streams upon which local residents depend for the water they drink and the fish they eat. And yet President Torrijos insists upon using his cabinet chambers to promote the gold mining stock of former Cocle governor Richard Fifer, while Fifer is facing criminal charges for embezzling public funds, and meanwhile Fifer's company flouts existing environmental laws. So is Rangel going to come down here to insist that Panama make peculation by public officials more illegal than it already is, and prohibit environmentally destructive acts that are already prohibited by law?

It's easy to do such a thing when one lives in a Washington bubble where all information about Panama comes from corporate special interests, mainstream US media that depend on access to ruling circles to get any information at all about Latin American countries and shills for the likes of the Torrijos administration. Still, some information that imparts a sense of reality does seep through, even if not during lunch at Angelo's with Panamanian cabinet members.

The rational US congressional response to Panamanian realities is not a demand for paper changes, but the rejection of a deal struck with politicians who are too dishonest to be suitable partners with whom to do business.

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A lot has been happening of late. The city government has backed down on a hasty decision to end the pedestrian mall experiment on that part of Avenida Central between Plaza Cinco de Mayo and the park in Santa Ana. The wisdom of the mayor and representantes taking a second look is to be applauded.

The national government may or may not back down on the reduction in time for tourist visas. They won't until at least September, but then it seems likely that they will.

As befitting the national debate now underway --- even if the debate here will be inconsequential compared to the one in Washington --- much of this issues Spanish-language news and opinion sections is dedicated to events and beliefs about the system that the United States somewhat imprecisely dubs "free trade."

Do you find all the hooplah about Paris Hilton annoying? I do, and I found MSNBC news anchor Mika Brzezinski's refusal to read that voyeuristic trash as her employers' lead news story refreshing. Anyway, in our Fun section this time we have a different take on how people react to Ms. Hilton.

This issue takes us through dust storms at sea, science fiction polemics for war and repression, gangland history, new worldwide efforts against Chagas disease and drug-resistant TB, to Panama City's Gay Pride march and a Fourth of July fireworks show, and on a ride through a La Chorrera that's under construction.

And I took time to appreciate the flowers.

Enjoy.

Eric Jackson

the editor