INACTION ON THE ANDES

PRESIDENT BUSH goes to Latin America on Thursday at a time when the
region cries out for American engagement. Colombia's drug-fueled war
is deepening, despite American efforts to shore up the government.
Mexico's President Vicente Fox has been disappointed thus far in his
hopes for a new deal with the United States on immigration. Argentina
is in chaos, having abandoned its policy of pegging its currency to
the dollar.

Across the region, there are questions about American commitment to allies.

Populists such as Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez denounce the
United States at every opportunity.

Mr. Bush will try to use his trip -- to Mexico, Peru and El Salvador
- -- to restore a sense of American leadership. But the assistance that
he promises, notably in the area of trade, depends on congressional
approval. His hopes for a Free Trade Area of the Americas depend on
passage of trade-promotion authority, which made it through the House
last year but which is now stuck in the Senate. Equally, the Senate
has failed to follow the House in extending trade preferences to the
Andean region, a subject that will certainly come up when Mr. Bush
meets the four Andean leaders in Peru on Saturday.

The Senate's failure to help the four Andean states -- Colombia,
Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia -- is particularly egregious.

A package of trade concessions has passed through committee and
commands an overwhelming majority of the full chamber.

It renews market access that was first granted in 1991 with the aim
of creating economic alternatives to drug cultivation, and that
expired last December; it also increases the access by lengthening
the list of qualifying products.

Only a handful of senators opposes the package.

But the Senate leadership has failed to bring it to the floor, making
it likely that Mr. Bush will arrive in Peru empty-handed.

Trade liberalization is nearly always a good way to boost prosperity.
But holding up a trade bill that is part of the struggle against
drugs seems particularly misguided.

Since the Andean Trade Preference Act was first passed in 1991 it has
generated some 140,000 jobs in industries such as cut flowers,
jewelry and asparagus; each job is an alternative to cultivating
coca. At a time when American leadership in Latin America is being
questioned, the least the Senate could do is to pass a trade measure
that almost nobody opposes.